Over the past 30 years, Warwick native Sandra Ruggiero has sewn her fair share of garments, stitching everything from window treatments to prom dresses.

Through her business, Serafina Sews, Ruggiero is transforming old materials into new, sustainable designs.

“Textiles are getting harder to find; fabric stores are closing,” Ruggiero shared in a recent phone interview. “And it has just made me do a little bit more of a deep dive about how to be able to re-purpose and up-cycle and do things of that nature. That is something that's more prominent in what I've been doing.”

Ruggiero does mostly custom work, focusing on gowns for weddings or proms and memory quilts made from old t-shirts, but she adds her own personal spin by incorporating unconventional or previously loved textiles.

“Not everybody wants to wear their mom's wedding gown, or their grandma's wedding gown. But you can take that and remake it and enhance it with new textiles if need be and still have something sentimental, but it's up-cycled,” she said.

Prior to the pandemic, Ruggiero participated in fashion shows during Rhode Island Fashion Week and at Johnston and Wales University, where she showcased her sustainable designs. Utilizing bedspreads and sheets bought at thrift stores, and even the paper honeycomb packaging used to protect fragile items, Ruggiero created a collection made entirely from re-purposed materials.

”That honeycomb paper is not really an unusual textile, but one of my most well received pieces when I've done the shows, Ruggiero said. One of the coolest pieces I ever did was a woman’s dress made from neckties.

”And the cool thing about it is I've had it worn by three four different models and they were all fairly tall, but all different body types,” she added. “Because it was neckties, it takes the shape of whoever’s body goes into it. It's very cool.”

In May 2021, Ruggiero had the chance to showcase her work in an outdoor fashion show held at Rocky Point. Ruggiero worked with Yemi Sekoni, a designer and host of Fashion Fete International, a YouTube channel and networking platform that highlights designers, hair stylists, makeup artists, photographers, and fashion creatives from around the world.

Sekoni provided the models and Ruggiero provided the garments.

The fashion show, season 2 episode 6, can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fx5V-jEskUM&t=920s.

Ruggiero shared that this was a cool event, because of COVID we couldn’t do any fashion shows.

Ruggiero didn’t always plan on working as a designer. “I wanted to be a rock star when I grew up,” she said laughing. Didn’t we all?

But as Ruggiero got older, she found herself drawn to creative work like fashion design.

“I used to enjoy going to secondhand stores and finding really cool clothes and if they weren't exactly how I wanted them then I would take them apart and recreate them. I was really into doing embroidery at that time,” she said.

When she married and had her first child, Ruggiero wanted to contribute to the household, while still staying home, so she started to sew. With no formal training, she began working on draperies and window treatments. But one wedding dress led to another, and soon she found herself doing bridal and prom wear.

“You know, it's all been word of mouth. It's all networking the old fashioned way,” Ruggiero said. She doesn’t have a website or storefront, but does sell some garments at local shops like Twice Told Tales in Pawtuxet Village.

Ruggiero defies the image of a seamstress bent over a sewing machine. She is bummed out that triathlons she competed in closed because of Covid and the companies that organized them are no longer in business. Her morning run, at least until the cold snap hit, was several miles to Conimicut Point and back. Lately, she’s been walking a route that takes her along Warwick Pond where she watches for hawks and herons she admires.

In May she will be traveling to Fort Lauderdale to compete in the National Senior Games as she has done since 2009, with the exception of the last couple of years. She will be competing in freestyle swimming.

Ruggiero’s favorite part about fashion is the ability to create a beautiful garment personalized for someone.

“I am really happy to make something for someone and have them walk out of the house with a well fitting garment as opposed to shopping and shopping and still ending up with an ill fitting garment,” she said.

“Being able to give a bride an opportunity to have, seriously, the dress of her dreams is the best feeling,” Ruggiero added. “She can actually tell me what the elements are that would really make it be the dress of her dreams and we can work together to get there. I really do feed off of that. To have them feel beautiful when they go to their events, that makes me feel like I’ve done what I’m supposed to be here to do.”