The Artist Crafting Hyperrealistic Felt Foods

WHEN YOU THINK OF FAKE food, plastic restaurant replicas might come to mind. While these displays may seem like accurate representations of what you’re about to eat, they often don’t look particularly appetizing, or even that realistic.

Then there’s the artist Huong Huynh, and her sewn felt creations of food, which are almost too real looking. It wouldn’t be all that surprising to see one of her soft sculptures in a bakery case. Even worse—or better, depending on how you think about it—they’re flawless, without any danger of melting frosting or withering fruit.

Huynh’s superlative sewing skills are the result of long practice. The Houston-based artist opened her Etsy store Milkfly in 2010, and started out with 20 pieces. Unlike her now near-photographic accuracy, those early food sculptures still had some rough edges. “The felt food I made in the beginning [was] much more simplistic than the ones I make today,” Huynh says. “I am always learning