Today we’d like to introduce you to Michael Natenshon.
Michael, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I started Marine Layer, or thinking about it, the day after my girlfriend threw away my favorite t-shirt from college. To be fair, it had seen better days, but I couldn’t find another one that fit and felt as good as that one. I figured if I couldn’t find one then I’d just try and make one myself. I was back in school and had quit my finance job and so I started learning about textiles and patterns and just kind of figured it out cause I really wanted an awesome new t-shirt. Turns out it was a lot harder than I envisioned. The first run of shirts cost me about $20k because I was developing a custom fabric and they took about a year to make, but ended up being pretty awesome. I sold them out of my apartment in San Francisco to friends and family and from there Marine Layer was off and running. I thought we’d be an online business, but about a year later I did a little pop-up shop on Chestnut St. that was way more successful than I would have thought so I got my best friend to join me and we opened up a retail store. It was profitable right from the first month and since then we’ve just tried to open up other stores in cities and neighborhoods that we really like. Not super scientific, but Bucktown is awesome and that was the first store we opened outside of California.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Ha. No. Manufacturing anything custom is really really hard. We’ve made about a million mistakes along the way, but we try and make small mistakes and learn from them, which has really been a big key to our success I think. Just screw up a little bit and you’ll be ok! I also think you have to get comfortable putting yourself out there when things are less than perfect. I’m our biggest critic when it comes to our clothes, there are always little things that I want to improve, but when I step back I try and remember that on the whole our shirts are awesome and I think our customers agree. They probably don’t even remember that I spelled cotton incorrectly on our first run of shirts.
Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Marine Layer – what should we know?
Started out trying to make a new favorite shirt. We’ve grown into a full line of casual apparel, basically everything you would wear from Friday to Sunday. But the ethos is the same, we want to make everything fit and feel like that old favorite shirt that just makes you happy when you put it on.
I think every brand is unique, but there is something pretty genuine about what we are and we’ve never tried to be anything other than that, which I’m proud of. We try and be the best version of ourselves, but we’re not trying to imitate another brand, Marine Layer is just Marine Layer.
Any shoutouts? Who else deserves credit in this story – who has played a meaningful role?
I deserve like 99% of the credit. Ha. Kidding. Actually the girlfriend – now my wife – gets a lot of the credit because she didn’t dump me when I quit my finance job to start a high-priced t-shirt company in the middle of a recession. My business partner Adam does most of the real work around here so he probably gets a lot of the credit too. Oh, all the customers who seem to keep buying our stuff and supporting our brand should get a lot of the credit too. Our customers and the community around Marine Layer is really awesome. Ok, downgrading my initial answer from 99% to like 2%.
Contact Info:
- Address: 646 N Damen Ave, Chicago, IL 60647
- Website: marinelayer.com
- Instagram: marinelayer
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