The New York Times said, ”Mr Detwiler appeared as if out of nowhere. His first ever STAN collection looked as polished as the work of more seasoned designers”. These are comments about 23-year-old Tristan Detwiler after his debut at New York’s Fashion Week recently.
Champion Surfer and Model, Detwiler, who was raised and lived in San Diego, a place he will always call home, has started his own clothing business STAN by upcycling and using vintage quilts as a basis for garments. Taking basic shapes of chore jackets, Baja hoodies, board shorts, and cozy cocoon coats. He uses unique quilts, some 140 years old, antique bedcovers, retro blankets as well as grain, potato, and rice sacks. All these individual pieces are influenced by Southern Californian surfing culture.
Detwiler has competed in the University of Southern California surf team at the same time taking fashion design classes. In 2018 he joined the Bumann Quilters of Olivehain, a group of ladies who have been quilting for decades, to develop his skills.
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“I’ve gotten some hate comments on TikTok”, where he has to date 133,000 followers, for cutting up some of the really old quilts he says “ but I see it as preserving their story”. The idea came to him as a surfer when he and his mates used old quilts to keep warm shoreside after a surfing session. And so it began.
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His fabrics have various heritages, one could be a 1920’s “one patch” in a checkerboard motif to a 20th-century wedding quilt to an 1890 Amish jewel-toned quilt or a 1980’s screen printed potato sack. He is more of a maker than a fashion designer with his one-or-few-of-a-kind upcycled clothes. He describes himself as a Storyteller. Check it out at his online shop at www.stanclothing.com. Also on Instagram at @tristandetwiler_ and also @stanclothing.
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GRAHAM FRASER 
Queerguru’s Culture, Fashion, and Arts Correspondent was once half of the award-winning FASHION DESIGNER duo WORKERS FOR FREEDOM. Years spent working in the luxury end of INTERNATIONAL FASHION he now lives with his partner the artist RICHARD NOTT and their two Cavapoos Albert and Raf in a stunning renovated 1950’s house on the edge of the Sussex Downs with distant sea views.
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