By Richard L. Gaw
Staff Writer

On her Instagram account, Caitlin Michener defines herself by the following words: “Natural Dyer,” “Mama of two,” “Terpsichorean Explorer” and perhaps most descriptive of all,   “Dreamweaver,” but to truly absorb the aesthetic and the holistic vibe that moves her through her life, one would simply need to take a quick turn around her The Naked Lady Gallery & Shop in Chadds Ford and soak up all of the colors that are found there.

The tints and the tinges and the tones on the women’s clothing on the store’s racks – sweater dresses and silk bouses and flowing scarves, all of which have been dyed and improved by her hands - seem as if they have been brushed against the heather and florals and whispery landscape of Chester County. Behold the pageantry: deep teal and logwood bark and petals and roots and the gold seen in the flowing fields of Longwood Gardens, enough to tell a visitor that The Naked Lady Gallery & Shop is not just a store but an invitation.

“I made a very conscious decision that when I opened this store, that I was going to greet every single person who walked in with a fully open heart, to engage them with love and honesty and the gift of being able to share this space with them,” Michener said. “That invitation opens the door for people to slow down to take their time, to really look and smell and touch and check in with their moment.”

A merging of influences

As a child growing up in West Chester, becoming a store owner was not originally on the To-Do shelf of aspirations for Michener. From a young age, she was drawn to the art of performance, and took jazz, tap and ballet classes at the Longwood Performing Arts. After her graduation from Unionville High School, she attended New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, where she studied dance and experimental theater, the groundwork of education and training that led to roles as a performer, director and choreographer in dozens of productions throughout New York City.

In 2014, Michener took what she defined as the largest transformation of her life. After spending a decade in New York City, she took up residence in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, where she began to raise her two children with her former partner. It was there, in the rural South, where she replaced her first love of dance and theater with newfound passions, influences and life changes.

“My whole life shifted from being a city girl to a country life, living in a little house on the top of a hill overlooking the river, and it was there in Arkansas where my avenues for expression radically shifted,” said Michener, who gave birth to her two children while living in Eureka Springs.

The father of her children was in the business of buying and selling vintage clothing, and through him, Michener began to pack her kit bag of knowledge about the art of dyeing, knitting, sewing and clothing design. It was in between raising her two small children where she discovered another love: digging her hands in the dirt of what would become her gardens.

“My passion for natural dyeing came from the garden, and I began to find pleasure and connection between vintage clothing and growing plants,” she said. “I enjoyed the transformation from seed and water into gorgeous blooms and once I saw the colors of the blooms, I began to learn how to transfer those colors onto clothing and other things.”  

Skills – those developed, cultivated and marketed – are often transferable. Three years ago, Michener made the decision that would serve as her life’s next chapter: She moved with her children back to Chester County, and in 2023, she first opened the doors of The Naked Lady Gallery & Shop at the Chadds Ford Village & Barn Shops.

“I have come to believe very strongly that space shifts in very obvious ways and also in a lot of a subtle and unconscious ways,” Michener said. “Growing up here, I felt like I was a bit of an outsider, so finding myself back here, I felt strongly compelled to find a safe space for myself, and being to hold this safe and creative space feels really food and very necessary. 

It has been an affirming experience to see people walk into the store and breathe a sigh in relief, as if in acknowledgement of being in a space that feels sacred, a bit different and rooted in real things.”

In addition to the many all natural, one-of-a-kind women’s vintage clothing – which Michener finds at thrift stores in the area and dyes with petals, leaves, bark, roots and flowers – the store is an eco-friendly and holistic treasure trove of creativity, tradition and organic materials, all with the intention of helping the visitor express their own individuality and self-expression. 

“Being different is awesome,” Michener said. “Being different keeps us all going. I believe that fashion – at least the commonly accepted definition – is one of the most disastrous things to happen to our society and to our species, and it is strangling the environment and strangling us as consumers. Fashion has become about amassing as much as possible, even if it’s cheap and it’s heading to the landfill in less time that it took to make the clothing.

“There is already enough clothing in the world to clothe next six generations of humans. Once I started going down the intellectual rabbit hole of how clothing is produced – and what synthetic fibers do to our skin, as opposed to linen, wool or cotton – it was a radical shift in my consciousness. I learned to accept myself as not separate from our natural environment, but as part of it, and that is part of my purpose – to allow my customers to reflect the natural world by wearing products that contribute to their own sense of fashion.”

‘The root of my root’

To take a chisel softly to the structural construct of Caitlin Michener’s creative journey is to cobble together pieces of varying sizes, contours and meanings. It’s a chapter-by-chapter book still in the process of being written, a theatrical production of several acts and a few more that wait in the wings, and it is now here, in the form of a unique shop – derived from her past journeys – that is just miles from where she first began to dream her big dreams.

“Life forces us to embrace ourselves and it compels us to keep searching, and the more we search, the more curious we become and the more we learn and grow,” she said. “I have always wanted to be a creator, and growing up dancing and performing was the first language I knew – the language of movement. Creating in that language had always come very easily and theater was an extension of that. The work I am doing now feels like an extension of that, in that I am learning new languages. 

“My modes of expression have changed, but it all comes back to my roots of using what I was around to create a statement of individuality that says, “This is who I am.” I am still dancing and I am still moving, and that is the root of my root.”

The Naked Lady Gallery & Shop is located in the Chadds Ford Village & Barn Shops, 1609 Baltimore Pike in Chadds Ford. To learn more, visit www.thenakedladygalleryandshop.com or call (484) 883-2368.

To contact Staff Writer Richard L. Gaw, email [email protected].