Dust of Gods x Sydney Swisher
An exploration of the Spirit of Americana
Dust of Gods x Sydney Swisher: An exploration of the Spirit of Americana
We approached Sydney Swisher to apply her artistic approach to the concept of Americana: painting scenes that evoke the nostalgia and collective memory of what the world recognizes as the American landscape. Her hand-painted environments, from open plains to neon-lit motels, are not tied to a specific time or place and instead draw from shared cultural imagery that feels both familiar and slightly out of reach. Paired with repurposed materials like vintage cowboy boots, worn denim, and vintage patches, each jacket becomes a collage of symbols that carry their own history. Through her process of layering materials, memories, and references, and Dust of Gods' expertise and approach to creating wearable art, we created garments that feel like artifacts of Americana as we imagine it, built from fragments that resonate across generations.
The Artist
Sydney Swisher is a self-taught painter from southern Illinois whose practice centers on oil-on-fabric works that blur the boundaries between memory, material, and machine intelligence. In an era shaped by rapid technological acceleration, her work examines how personal history is reassemble, and sometimes distorted, through digital tools. The resulting images are specific yet universal: landscapes and interiors that evoke a collective nostalgia while carrying a quiet unease. They question how images record for us, and what becomes altered or lost in that exchange, probing the evolving nature of a future shaped by invented pasts.materials, memories, and references, Sydney creates garments that feel like artifacts of Americana as we imagine it, built from fragments that resonate across generations.
The Spirit of Americana Collection
'Endless Ride'
This hand-painted leather jacket captures a quiet, cinematic moment of Americana: a lone motel glowing red against the late-night darkness, a vintage top-down car resting beneath its neon hum. It’s a scene that feels both familiar and far away, like a memory you’re not sure is yours.
The sleeves are embedded with panels cut directly from a vintage cowboy boot, stitched into the arms to carry the grit, stories, and craftsmanship of the old West.
The jacket is finished with custom leather patches sourced from true Americana relics - forgotten gas stations, roadside icons, and heritage automotive branding. Each piece acts as a fragment of the era, woven together to create a single narrative of classic American nostalgia.
'Great Wide Open'
This hand-painted denim jacket captures a modern take on Western Americana. The back features a detailed landscape.. open fields, sharp mountains, and a lone rider moving through the scene. It’s quiet, expansive, and intentionally grounded in the realism of the West.
The jacket is built with repurposed leather panels, cut directly from a vintage cowboy boot and integrated into the shoulders and pockets. The tooling, texture, and patina of the leather bring authentic Western craftsmanship into the design without romanticizing it.
It’s a study in material reuse and American iconography, paint, denim, and aged leather brought together in a way that feels lived-in, intentional, and unmistakably one-of-one.
The Road Trip Subcollection
The supplemental collection separate from our collaboration explores Americana through cultural caches that have shaped its visual identity. Each piece interprets a familiar reference, from Harley culture to Playboy-era Pamela Anderson to roadside motel typography. The range includes long sleeve tees inspired by these icons, a black denim jacket built with deconstructed leather pants that nods to classic denim-and-leather culture, a hooded blue denim piece with star embellishment blending street and western influences, and a grey hoodie with distressed leather star patches that captures a more rugged, night-time western mood.
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The Rebel Jacket
$2,500.00
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Lone Road Hoodie
$1,750.00
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Motel Nights Hoodie
$950.00
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