In 2012 the museum will be partnering with Franklin & Marshall College’s Art History Department in an exhibition that explores the connection between the quilts’ collector, Doug Tompkins, founder of the Esprit Corporation, and the fashions produced by Esprit in the 1980s. Tompkins began collecting Lancaster County quilts in the 1970s. The quilts’ design, shape and color were reflected in all aspects of Esprit’s brand; from hang tags to catalogs to the clothes themselves. Explore the changing art-historical understanding of quilts, from folk art to feminist expression to American modernism.