Upcycle

Creative ways to reuse the kilt

Share how you upcycle by emailing us at upcycle@lincolnschool.org

Rachel Briden ’16 spent so many years at Lincoln – 15 including preschool – that she accumulated a whole lot of kilts. The kilt was so ingrained in her life at Lincoln, and Lincoln was so key to her identity, that she stuffed a dozen in a duffle bag and took them to Regis College.

The kilts were the only real piece of home she brought, and she had no idea what she’d do with them. She quickly arrived at an idea: Turn them into a bed skirt. She spread out one, then buttoned it to another, and so on. It took about 10 kilts to create the skirt, which she tucked under her dorm mattress. Voila! All that dorm room under-the-bed storage disappeared from sight. And the fabric of her life was back in her life.

“I think it was a safety thing,” Briden said. “I didn’t have a teddy bear or anything like that, but those kilts were like a teddy bear. They brought me comfort.”

Briden studied nursing at Regis and went on to become a family nurse practitioner. She works at Saint Anne’s Hospital in Fall River, caring for patients through COVID. She jokes that, with her scrubs, she still wears a uniform every day.

301 Butler Ave. Providence, RI 02906

Wendy Schwerin ’31 and Esmae Carey ’31