Textile curator Linda McShannock says a purple and orange designer coat made by textile artist Nancy MacKenzie from onion sacks represents the 20th century to her. MacKenzie, a Minnesota artist, makes clothing from recycled materials, such as the plastic mesh bags grocery stores discard after removing the vegetables. For the coat, MacKenzie used purple mesh onion bags and baling twine as piping. The coat is lined with her own custom-dyed cotton lining.

"In the 19th century," McShannock said, "people who made clothing from recycled material did so out of necessity, due to scarcity or unavailability of goods. At the end of the 20th century, some recycled clothing makes a fashion statement about the abundance of available materials."

"The story of 20th century textiles is centered around technology and synthetic materials that were unavailable in the 19th century: plastics, nylon, polyester and synthetic rubber, like Spandex," she explains. "The colors, style and materials of these garments would all be foreign to the 19th-century consumer."

Recycling onion bags into clothing, as MacKenzie did, echoes an early 20th-century practice of making clothes from another type of recycled product packaging — feed and flour sacks. "We have MacKenzie's coat and hat in the collection, and I'd like to add examples of printed cotton feed-sack clothing," McShannock says.