The quilters of Gee’s Bend, a remote community in Alabama’s Black Belt region, have been practising their craft for over a century. Rooted initially in survival – quilts were stitched together from old work clothes, fabric scraps and flour sacks to keep warm in unheated homes – the practice has been continued by generations of Black women, who have used quilts as sites of ‘history, memory and kinship’, as Diana Budds wrote when she visited Gee’s Bend for Wallpaper* in 2025.
Indeed, Gee’s Bend, which is named after Joseph Gee, a plantation owner and enslaver who bought 6,000 acres of land in the area in 1816, has become a site of significant activism in the 20th century. With the quilting practice beginning during slavery – Dinah Miller, who was captured in West Africa as a teenager and brought to Alabama in 1860, is often considered the mother of the movement – Gee’s Bend was later purchased, in 1937, by the American government, allowing inhabitants to buy back land through low-interest loans. Martin Luther King visited during the Civil Rights Movement, in 1965, after ferry services were cut off to prevent inhabitants from voting, while in 1966, the Freedom Quilting Bee was established, a cooperative that allowed participants to pool profits following commissions from stores such as Bloomingdale’s.
Artist in Residence: Ralph Lauren x Gee’s Bend
The Ralph Lauren x Gee's Bend collection is available at ralphlauren.com
‘Whatever we are thinking about or what's going on in our lives, we typically put it into the quilt, sometimes not even knowing it,’ Loretta Pettway Bennett, a quilter, told Budds. ‘I tell people, it's in my blood. It's a part of my DNA. And I see it in my granddaughter, even though she’s four years old. When she was three, I started her threading needles.’
Now, a new project from Ralph Lauren sees the Gee’s Bend quilters become the latest participants in the American fashion house’s ‘Artist in Residence’ programme. Uniting with Loretta Pettway Bennett and Claudia Pettway Charley of Gee’s Bend, the project centres on two original quilts created by the textile artists, reimagined across clothing and home accessories, including a jacket, a version of the Polo Play Bag, pillows and hand-painted ceramics. Each features the original quilts’ bold, improvisational motifs, which are imbued with symbolic meaning by the artists (Pettway Bennett’s recurring red triangles, for example, represent her sons). Befitting the art of quilting, the apparel – constructed largely from denim, a historic workwear fabric – utilises upcycled Ralph Lauren fabrics.
The ‘Artist in Residence’ programme is part of a wider initiative from Ralph Lauren titled ‘Design With Intent’, designed to ‘expand its portrayal of America and to evolve from inspiration to collaboration with communities that have historically inspired Ralph Lauren’s designs’, as the brand describes. Previous iterations include collaborations with Naiomi Glasses (Diné/Navajo), Zefren-M (Diné/Navajo), Jocy and Trae Little Sky (Oceti Sakowin) of TÓPA, spotlighting traditional indigenous craft.
Ralph Lauren x Gee's Bend collection is available globally on Ralph Lauren’s website and in selected stores. Five per cent of the purchase price will go to the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), a Montgomery, Alabama-based initiative dedicated to social justice.