Tranquility, peace, harmony. They are the feelings that dominate her brain space. But mention a certain seven- letter word and get ready to see Susan Rafetto morph into a momentary rage: Uniform.
“I despise every form of that word,” said the fabric-mixing mad scientist fashionista behind Peace by Piece Boutique. “I grew up a twin; uniformity was part of the gig, but I’m the wacky one. I hate uniforms. It means the same, and I’m just not the same. Expression is central to what I am.”
Rafetto has always been creative. It runs in the family from the Philadelphia suburbs. Her mom is a painter, singer, piano player, and a reupholstering knitter. Her grandmother, who died in 1976, was a photographer and a weaving expert. Both were wizzes around a sewing machine and took her regularly to Philly’s iconic Fabric Row for inspiration.
“Every picture I have from my child-hood that makes me smile, it’s Mom andMom-Mom and me, all of us making clothes,” Rafetto said.
Rafetto had intermittently dabbled in art, but running a property management company in Philly left little time to scratch that itch. A corporate management change left her jobless as the COVID pandemic began, so she turned to her sewing machine to reconnect with her creative energy. At first, that led to her crafting and donating hundreds of face masks. But then…
“I had a jacket that had made it through every move, but I hadn’t worn in 20 years. So, I started taking it apart and sewing my favorite pieces of fabric together with other old outfits,” she said. The efforts re-minded her of a mantra born of her divorce: “It’s easy to think you’ve lost your identity, but it just gives you a chance to find a new one. That’s what I’m doing with these clothes.”
Rafetto’s first efforts sparked a buzz among her inner circle of friends, which led her to showing them to her bigger circle and, alas, her first sale. What began as therapeutic sewing quickly became an avenue to translate her earthy bohemian life’s worth of passions and inspirations on to a new canvas.
“Being a property manager, I would see endless bags of old clothes tossed. Those clothes take 200 years to break down in our landfills, all the while emit-ting very bad toxins into the earth,” Rafetto said. “So why not give them a new purpose? I’m a vegan, I love animals and want to protect our environment. That’s where the Peace by Piece comes from. I can help foster peace through every piece of fabric.”
The 55-year-old also knew her life in Philly was at a crossroads. She had become close friends with former Pennsylvania governor and national Democratic Party leader Ed Rendell, accompanied him to fundraisers where she schmoozed with Barbra Streisand and got compliments on her tattoos from former President Barack Obama. But romance was not in the cards there.
She had suddenly found a potential new career that was mobile. Her daughter, Dominique, had moved to Hilton Head Island to start a life with her new hubby, musician Kyle Wareham. Rafetto had never been to the Lowcountry. What better way to match her vagabond pangs with a chance to be closer to family?
So, she packed up her budding collection of orphaned fabric in the summer of 2020, moved into a one-bedroom apartment in Bluffton, sight unseen, and began working at Fish Camp at Broad Creek to fund both her rent and her startup fabric supply.
“You know, I found my greatest joy is sitting at a sewing machine for 8 to 10 hours a day and just creating,” Rafetto said. “On one hand, COVID made it harder
to figure out if I could make a business of this. But it also gave me time to create and focus on how to make this a business. I applied for an LLC and an EIN (business tax ID) and decide to give it a go.”
Each piece Rafetto creates is a one-of-a-kind blending of styles and fabric patterns. Her early pieces were full of denim, whether it was jeans or jackets. The many shades of her personality emerged in the designs, from John Lennon and Jimi Hendrix tribute jackets to urban and biker chic stylings, animal-adorned tops, and a denim blouse with ’60s psychedelic pattern inlays and “TROUBLEMAKER” in big, bold letters on the back above a broken heart.
“Clothes are personal. They are a peek into our soul,” Rafetto said. “When I take different pieces of fabric from many outfits, now you get this unique piece that’s suddenly nostalgic and relatable to a whole crowd of people. That’s a pretty cool vibe to put out there.”
No look or fabric combo is off limits for Rafetto, as witnessed in a duster she crafted with a timeless black and white flower pattern bottom stitched together with a puffy shirt top reminiscent of a classic Seinfeld episode.
“Sequins, flowers, puppies, plaid flannels … it’s truly magical how every–thing just seems to work,” she said. “I bleach it, cut it, shred it a bit, whatever it takes. This fabric gets repurposed, finds a whole new life. Everything is sustainable, reusable—so much of this was never ready for the landfill. It just needed a champion to give it a new path.”
Rafetto found a captive audience in Wareham’s musical crowd. She set up a couple racks outside an early-fall 2020 show at Coligny and sold $1,200 worth of jackets—proceeds she sent to aid her little sister, the youngest of four siblings, who was fighting bladder cancer. She began selling her clothes on consignment at the Pink Pineapple island boutique. More recently, she’s been a featured artist at The Studio restaurant and earned a big supporter in owner Lunonia Colella.
She soon branched out to making men’s clothes as well and is working on pieces for musicians like Zach Stevens and Coligny Theater co-managers Matt Stock and John Cranford.
Every piece has her homemade logo sewn in, as well as a piece of fabric with a hidden positive message like “You are Beautiful.”
“It’s so fun to hear when they discover the messages. It’s just another layer to make sure the clothing they buy inspires happiness,” Rafetto said.
Her new Lowcountry fans pushed her to post her works on social media, so she created an Instagram account, @susanpeacebypiece, and a website, peacebypieceboutique.com. Both show off wearable works of art, complete with a unique name that showcases Rafetto’s inspiration for making it.
“My work has definitely evolved just since I got down here,” Rafetto said. “There’s still the Philly chic there but plenty now inspired by the sunshine and outdoors beauty of this incredible slice of heaven.”
Her apartment now looks equal parts Hoarders and the backstage of a fashion show. She feels for her Peloton being smothered by racks and racks of old clothes on deck for a reimagining.
“I probably need some more space; my sewing machine probably needs a new motor; but I just can’t stop creating,” she said. “I always wanted to be a mom, a wife, liked doing some art and bartending on the side. Being a property manager was a means to an end, far from a dream. Now this right here, it’s a dream.”
Rafetto said she never was much of an organizer, but she’s embracing that challenge to feed the dream. She’s talked to Stock about a fashion show at Coligny this spring and has even talked to a Philly transplant interior designer friend about opening a boutique in Savannah near SCAD in the future. And she’s found a sustainable fashion mentor in West Philly designer Kimberly McGlonn, the founder of the Grant Boulevard line that has caught the attention and financial backing of Beyonce.
“I read her story and I saw a path to this dream,” Rafetto said. “She’s doing exactly what I want to do in being a creative and philanthropic guardian of the Earth.”
Rafetto is putting friend requests for new designs into action, launching a line of handbags adorned with custom pet portraits. Her latest entrepreneurial brainstorm is the “Take Five Fashion Show.” “I’m challenging fans to do exactly what I did when I started this,” she said. “Give me five items of clothing and trust me to recreate and give you your own personal fashion show with your new clothes.”
She never imagined she’d feel as at home as she does after the first time getting off of Exit 8. Now, Rafetto is reunited with family and gets to be ‘Gamma’ to Kyle and Dominique’s firstborn, River. She hopes to be as much a model of ingenuity and individuality for her grandkids as her Mom and Mom-Mom were for her.
“I want to help people, to donate part of the proceeds to charities and causes I believe in and just see where this road takes me,” she said. “It’s amazing to have found a way to marry so many of my passions, especially to marry fashion and my Earth activism. I mean, pinch me, really. I feel bad that COVID has caused so many so much pain. It’s given me a chance at a reawakening. I know that 2021 is going to be my year.”
Check out Susan Rafetto’s wearable art online on Facebook,Instagram and at peacebypieceboutique.com.
