Elsa Kuhn reinvents the album cover with In Felt We Trust

As a child, Elsa Kuhn used staples as stitches when she designed clothes for her teddy bears and Barbie dolls. When she was a little older, her grandmother taught her sewing techniques and she’d alter her parents’ old clothes to wear herself. She then translated her childhood hobby into a lifelong passion, studying fashion at the L'Académie Internationale de Coupe de Paris and starting her own brand of children’s clothing called Eva Koshka. 

“One of my favorite parts of the job is stitching the prototypes,” she said. “I learned embroidery too, through books and YouTube videos. I also like hand-stitching, which is a long and meticulous process.”

On the side, she discovered a new passion that put her skills to the test: Recreating classic album covers with felt and a bit of string.

Twenty years ago, the designer had the idea to reproduce the face on Primal Scream’s Screamdelica album on a cushion for herself. After seeing the results, Kuhn continued with her recreations, using a sewing machine to replicate simple album designs, such as Wire’s Pink Flag, Sex Pistols, and Teenage Fanclub’s Bandwagonesque. Though the covers weren’t incredibly detailed, the idea stuck with her.

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Kuhn paused on the project, now called In Felt We Trust, to launch Eva Koshka. But three years ago, a chance encounter by an artist inspired her to restart the felt project. 

“I made a felt recreation of the Wolfhounds’ The Anti-Midas Touch as a gift for a friend. A few years later, the Wolfhounds played in Paris and the band stayed at my friend’s place,” Kuhn said. “The singer David Callahan asked me to create one for him!”

This time, she was armed with new techniques she picked up over the years.

“I learnt new embroidery skills and decided to hand-embroider instead of using a sewing machine,” she said. “There’s opportunity to be more precise and it opens a lot of new possibilities.”

When she has her sights set on a new felt project, Kuhn will study the album’s design and sketch it out on paper. Afterwards, she’ll cut the felt, and draw in the details and shading directly onto the cloth. Then, she’ll embroider.

“Sometimes I can spend hours or days finding the perfect felt color or catching the face in a few stitches,” Kuhn said. “Capturing a facial expression is the most difficult thing about my work.”

When it comes to selecting albums for In Felt We Trust, the artist usually picks from her own record collection, but customers have also commissioned her for personal orders. “I like having imposed subjects,” she said. “It forces me out of my comfort zone and makes me go to some new visual worlds.”

Of all of the recreations she’s made, Kuhns favorites include a Run DMC record (“the black and white subject with this colorful typography”), a Sebadoh album (“I like the band, but also there was a lot of work. All of these small details to embroider.”), and “Pet Sounds” by the Beach Boys (“It was like my Sistine Chapel. I spent a lot of weeks hand-stitching all these cute goats!”).

Before the pandemic, Kuhn would browse record shops for inspiration, sifting through old and new albums for hours at a time. “When I traveled, I would choose destinations with the most record shops,” she admitted. “I would list all of the record shops and walk through the city with a map, like a treasure hunt.”

With travel restrictions in place, she finds inspiration where many of us work, connect, and entertain ourselves: The internet.

“I scroll for hours on Instagram or Pinterest — so many talents in illustration, embroidery, tattoo… I also try to watch documentaries or read books.”

Though she was originally going to have an exhibition of her work at Festival Yeah! in the South of France, the event was cancelled because of the pandemic. That hasn’t stopped her from staying open to new collaborations and creating original artwork.

“I have always been passionate about music and like many passionate people, there’s always a time when you feel like finding a way to express it and communicate it,” Kuhn said. “Some start bands, some become music critics — I decided to use my needles and threads!”

Here are Elsa Kuhn’s 12 songs.

Like so many teenagers of my generation, I started to seriously listen to music with Nirvana, but I think it’s actually Sonic Youth that had the biggest impact on my music taste.

 Sonic Youth, I’m tempted to say, is the one band that can lead you to so many other things, like punk, of course, experimental music, free jazz, but also underground movie culture and literature. And let’s not forget art.

Even though I like all of their discography, Bad Moon Rising resonates with me in a particular way. The experimental side of it brings an almost industrial sound, Lydia Lynch’s collaboration, and last but not least, the cover art that reminds me of a John Carpenter movie.

I really think that you can’t listen to the Velvets for the first time without being changed forever in the way you listen to music. A song like “Sister Ray” can change the way you see the world.

As a teenager I was obsessed with this band and even wrote the lyrics to “Venus In Furs” on my bedroom wall. I was fascinated by Lou Reed’s genius, John Cale’s classy Welsh wit, Sterling Morrisson’s virtuosity, and Moe Tucker’s primitive beat.

I still listen to the band on a regular basis like their music is something sacred, urging you to buy any obscure bootleg by them.

Intrigued by the cover art of a baby digging up toilets, I borrowed the record at the local city library. We were in the ‘90s and the internet didn’t exist. For indie kids like me, the only way to have access to culture were those local city libraries. I was lucky though, because the people in charge of the one in my town had very good taste and the library built up a huge part of my cultural background.

Bakesale is THE anthem of my adolescence. Those blue afternoons spent drawing on the side of my school notes, the homemade mixtapes, band names pen-written on the back of my backpack, those evenings spent self-identifying with anti-heroes of teen movies.

I made the cover of Bakesale in felt. Sebadoh really loved the result and reposted it on their social media. I was truly touched.

As a teenager, I went to see the movie “Kids” by Larry Clark at the cinema. I remember really getting into the movie’s soundtrack that I bought and listened to it nonstop afterwards. A truly astonishing soundtrack, where you could find songs by Lou Barlow, Daniel Johnston, and a more-than-seven-minutes-long Slint track called "Good Morning Captain."

I was lucky to see them play live a decade later and when they played that song, I truly felt like I was 15 again.

Girls to the front! I think that for many teenage girls in the ‘90s, Kathleen Hannah and all the girls from the Riot Grrrl movement showed the way to feminism. “Take your guitar to empower yourself.” To raise awareness that women had a legitimate place in the music scene. There’s something absolutely liberating in the track "Rebel Girl,” an invitation to take action, a catharsis. It made me want to check out and listen to many other girl bands like the Slits, the Raincoats, and Kleenex.

I dubbed Bend Sinister by The Fall on a tape, and I discovered post punk and all of these incredible 80’s bands. Magazines wrote a lot about this band and their singer Mark E. Smith. I immediately liked the guy.

Mark E. Smith was a grump and a dictator in tergal trousers who could fire his musicians in the middle of a gig, but he was also a brilliant lyricist who always stayed very productive despite the many line-up changes. To see him live was always a bit of a happening, walking across the stage like a mad man with a microphone and fooling around with the musicians’ amps. He passed away three years ago and we all miss him so much. I could totally imagine him having his word on Brexit or the pandemic.

Lux and Ivy are the aunt and the uncle I've always wanted to have — cool grown-ups and a bit rebellious who let you browse their huge record collection. I learned to love obscure garage bands, the kind that only did one single that was recorded in their parent’s garage. And I fell madly in love with 60’s garage, proto punk: Nuggets compilations, Back From The Grave, Girls in Garage… 

The Cramps’ world isn’t just about the music, it is also B-movies, comics, strange books… I’ve read that their house was insane, that they used to collect so many records, books, movies, toys… I’ve always admired the couple who stays genuine. 

I was lucky to see them in concert a few months before Lux Interior passed away. They were crazy. Lux tried to eat his microphone while Poison Ivy stoically played her guitar.

I first heard of The Go-Betweens via a magazine, and I was intrigued by their story and how they lost the master tapes of their first recordings.

All of their recordings are amazing, but “Karen” is particularly incredible. Robert Forster relates his fascination with a librarian, “And she stands there in the library like a nun in church does.” These lyrics are so great.

I was a subscriber to the French magazine Les Inrockuptibles and they sent some compilations to their subscribers. On one of them, there was Lee Hazlewood and this amazing song, “The Night Before” that he sang with his inimitable baritone voice.

Some people only refer to his duos with Nancy Sinatra, but he was way more than that. He wrote so many great lyrics that were cynical and quite funny. He was also a producer, his point of entry in the music business. He passed away in 2007, leaving a deep and invaluable body of work.

In my own music pantheon, Billy Childish holds a particular place. I remember that night when a slightly drunk guy stared at my The Cramps button badge and said to me, “You should listen to Billy Childish. It’s a British version of The Cramps.” I am very curious by nature, so it didn’t take me long to check him out. I quickly fell for the king of DIY. 

I have a true fascination for multitalented characters. Billy Childish, on top of being a musician for more than 40 years with a rather colossal discography of more than 150 records, is also a painter, poet and producer. He embodies everything I like in the DIY spirit: Do it, take your guitar, your pen, your paintbrush or your sewing kit. No matter the medium and, more importantly, no matter the result, it’s the intention that matters.

I’m into this kinda wobbly Byrds-influenced song, and I’ve been into his lo-fi first album from 2010. I’ve been following his work ever since, including his Drinks project with the equally brilliant Cate Le Bon. He’s the kind of artist who is in perpetual motion, looking forward to the next project and taking risks.

It’s while listening to my favorite radio show Dynamite Hemorrhage that I discovered this great Portland band called Lithics.

At the time, they only had a limited edition cassette that was already out of print and I couldn’t find any physical support by them. Fortunately, they had some records out a few months after that and they toured in Europe. Their show in a small Parisian cave was quite epic.

Listen to Elsa Kuhn’s curated 12 songs playlist on Spotify.