“The creative process of painting has given us lots of inspiration this spring. Watercolor softens the edges and blurs our perception. A softening of this moment feels very appropriate to me—like a balm for our time. Sometimes when working on a design, I will squint my eyes to better understand the relationship of a pattern or color or both. Watercolor has this same effect—it allows you to breathe into a moment or place.”
Our design and production team creates our Watercolor Collection how Natalie has envisioned it. Specialty organic cotton fabrics feature a hand-painted technique applied by our stenciling team. It blurs our palm pattern in a watercolor effect that creates a subtleness to the graphic shape.
The Collection includes a series of silhouettes that are light and breezy—from everyday t-shirts to refined garments with gathered sleeves and shirred skirts. These styles are hand sewn by our artisans, machine sewn by our Bldg. 14 team, and some styles, like The Palm Love, are made in what we call a “hybrid” fashion—meaning they feature both forms of sewing artistry in one garment.
Explore the Watercolor Collection here and read below to find out more of what the collection features, like Rinne Allen’s Light Drawings and new face mask designs that complement the collection.
Rinne Allen’s Light Drawings
Rinne is no stranger to Alabama Chanin. She and Natalie have been friends and collaborators for over a decade. You’ll see Rinne’s photography around our website and Journal as well as in the Studio Book Series. Her images help us share our story in such a beautiful way. In addition to being a captivating photographer, Rinne’s creative endeavors include her light drawings. She has created a unique, natural light drawing process that combines elements from her garden with alternative photo processing methods she learned in some of her early college photography classes. She and her mother gather clippings from the garden and place them on specially treated light-sensitive photo paper and lay them in the sun. After a certain amount of exposure to sunlight, a cyanotype emerges. Each of these beautiful pieces is completely one of a kind.
We have a very limited selection of her Light Drawing available, as well as two of her photographic prints: Love and Confetti, featured in her book, Beauty Everyday. A portion of the sale of each photo will go to Arrow, a non-profit creative school that Rinne Allen founded in Athens, Georgia in 2010. This year they celebrate their 10th anniversary of offering children in their community a place for creative exploration and learning from the natural world and from each other.
Face Masks: New Print + Lightweight Offerings
We’re introducing new features and prints for our organic cotton face masks in the Watercolor Collection. From the beginning, our Reusable Non-Medical Grade Face Masks have been made with our signature 100% medium-weight organic cotton jersey (9.8oz/yd). We’re now offering the same mask design, but in lightweight organic cotton jersey (5.6oz/yd) and with an organic cotton tie. Same colors and same fit (though the lightweight fabric tends to have more stretch).
Our Watercolor Palm Face Mask features our specialty fabric with the new hand-painted technique showcased throughout the collection.