Firm creates bags from West Point fabric
If you’re like me, you never tire of gazing across the river at the majestic gray battlements of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. I’ve taken the tour, read the history (Edgar Allan Poe got expelled!), watched the fireworks and cheered at sporting events. I know it’s 5 p.m. when I hear the cannon boom.
To add more West Point to your life, you could get a bag created with fabric from a retired cadet dress uniform — the signature wool that, through the years, has created “the long gray line.” The bags are handsome, some with piping or brass buttons. As well as gray, they are made from pixilated camo or the red-striped West Point Band uniforms.
The bags are crafted and sold by Unshattered, a boutique in Wappingers Falls. It also offers custom bags, such as the one I saw during a visit with a cadet’s name tag sewn inside. The shop is a nonprofit social enterprise formed to help women in recovery from addiction; they are trained to cut patterns, sew and design.
Along with retired military uniforms, Unshattered works with other donated materials, such as dark blue leather from Southwest Airlines planes and muted plaid Mercedes-Benz upholstery.
Unshattered’s founder, Kelly Lyndgaard, connected with West Point after someone contacted her to make bags as triathlon prizes. “The West Point community has been great,” she says. “The students have coordinated uniform drives. Professors have spoken at our workshops. We’ve been given a tour of the uniform factory. Our products are for sale at the gift shop of the West Point Spouses’ Club,” which also provides Unshattered with grant money.
Lyndgaard, a former IBM engineer, made her first bag from one of her grandfather’s coats. Years later, she was helping with a fundraiser for The Hoving Home in Garrison. “I thought, ‘We can get people to donate old coats, and I’m sure I can teach these ladies how to sew,” she recalls. The campaign quickly raised $10,000. “It was clear that when women made something beautiful that somebody else wanted, it changed something inside them.”
Lyndgaard says she built Unshattered as a support system for women in recovery because it allows participants to be creative and learn leadership skills. “It ignites a sense of value and the ability to contribute,” she says.
Lois McCleary, who is Unshattered’s lead designer, joined the program in 2018. She showed me a bag made for a West Point family from the retired uniform worn by their cadet. The shirt pocket was sewn inside the bag, along with the soldier’s name tag.
“When somebody brings something in, I just get filled with excitement because I have no idea what I’m going to do,” McCleary says. “But I know it’s going to be beautiful.”
Unshattered, at 1090 Route 376 in Wappingers Falls, is open weekdays from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and Saturdays from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. See unshattered.org.