University of Rhode Island
Textiles, Fashion Merchandising and Design
TMD 402K The Art and Science of Fashion - Speaker Summaries
Denyse Schmidt: Designing Art Quilts
by Lindsay DiStasio
For our last seminar we had the pleasure of Denyse Schmidt of Denyse Schmidt Quilts coming to speak to us. Denyse is a Rhode Island School of Design graduate, published author, designer and successful business woman. She graduated from RISD in 1992 with a degree in Graphic Design. She went on to some graphic design jobs utilizing her skills but quickly became bored and decided she wanted more. After she made enough money from her full time job she decided to venture on to fill her desires. In 1996, just four years after graduation, Denyse started on her own and launched her quilt business. She followed with her idea to make unique art quilts that were unavailable in the retail market, and a growing business began.
Denyse went on to explain the process and the details about her business and career. Design starts with sketching and inspiration from earlier quilts. Inspiration and ideas can come from anywhere including: illustration, art, magazines and music. One quilt she designed in particular I thought had a catchy, poetic title called “Drunk Love in a Log Cabin” is also one of the most popular quilts she sells. This particular quilt uses the “liberated method” which means there are no patterns. She then showed us a slide of another quilt called “Mental blocks,” one of her earlier designs that she did all of sewing the blocks herself. As the business grew, fulfilling orders quickly became an impossible task. Since then she has hired and worked with Amish women to do the quilting. She has also experimented with doing custom quilts in which her clients have supplied the fabric. One woman from Maine sent fabric that included her husband’s ties. Another woman sent a collection of dresses including a Diane Von Furstenberg Wrap dress that Denyse, (dare I even say it) cut up to make a quilt. Besides that traumatic experience the business has only hit a few other bumps in the road. This includes experimentation with a lower priced mass produced line that ended up costing much more than it would profit.
The business has been very successful as Denyse claims to just have been lucky with the success and growth. The growth was helped by exposure in magazines and publications. Denyse Schmidt was in New York Times magazine her first year! Denyse Schmidt has also been in 200-300 magazines including Martha Stewart in 1998 and Time People in 2001. After the press in People her website received over 7,000 hits in the week after the publication ran! Denyse Schmidt has much to be proud of and the company looks as if will only get bigger and better. She has gotten her hands into many things stemming from the quilt business. She has produced bags, baby quilts, and table tops. She plans on producing a gift collection project in India which will be another first for her. The factory in India is also run and owned all by woman, another thing to be proud of in itself. Denyse Schmidt production will now even grower larger with its factory in Bridgeport, Connecticut and now India! Overall, I found Denyse to be a modest, yet creative, independent, smart business woman and someone in the field whose success is definitely something to look up to and aspire to.