Partners Phoebe Sung and Peter Buer formed Cold Picnic in 2010 after a summer spent digging through library book sales for anything to do with 1970s arts & crafts, textiles, ancient cave paintings, textiles, and geology. Once they had filled their heads with patterns, lore, crafts, and costumes, they began to create designs of their own, making each piece by hand, seeking out objects from the past for inspiration as well as building materials.