Brooklyn to Chelsea, 2000

After extending her sabbatical and beginning work as a stylist in New York City, Natalie moves from Brooklyn to an apartment in the Chelsea Hotel. Her new neighbor and longtime friend, Paul Graves, eventually becomes a partner in the t-shirt business.

Natalie explores t-shirt embroidery and manufacturing across the twenty square blocks of the Garment District in Manhattan. This search proves unsuccessful and motivates her to write a proposal for a collection of 200 one-of-a-kind t-shirts to be presented in combination with a short documentary film, “Stitch,” produced in her home community of northwest Alabama, known as The Shoals.

 

Read the entry about "Stitch" here.

 

Slide 1: Contact sheet from the Chelsea Hotel, photographed by Natalie Chanin, 2001, photograph by Robert Rausch

Slide 2: “Room 411,” photograph by Natalie Chanin, 2001

Slide 3: Early hand-sewn “Alabama” t-shirts, 2001, photographs by Natalie Chanin,

Slide 4: Early hand-sewn “Alabama” t-shirts, 2001, photographs by Natalie Chanin

Slide 5:  “Stardust,” photograph by Natalie Chanin, 2001—read more about “Stardust” here