On Saturday night, the New York Knicks beat the San Antonio Spurs to win the team’s first NBA championship in 53 years. As the Knicks celebrated on the court in San Antonio, the city that never sleeps lived up to its name, partying in honor of the Knickerbockers.
Amid the melee in the streets was Ramell-Coreen Frederick, known to his friends as “Cheeks.” He was sitting outside the Habana Outpost restaurant on Fulton and South Portland in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, working away on a vintage embroidery machine. Cheeks, a textile artist and denim tailor by trade, spent all night making custom championship gear for anyone who happened upon him. Requests ranged from the simple “2026 Champs” to slogans like “Send the Spurs to the Knick-U,” his fee starting at a modest $20.
Photos and videos of Cheeks and his work soon began making the rounds on social media. New Yorkers took off their hats, their jackets, their jerseys, or anything else they happened to have on and handed them over for Cheeks to embroider, as a way of marking the occasion.
“I want to go wherever the people are,” Cheeks told Vogue of his decision to set up a tiny table outside the local watch party. His embroidery is artwork, it is community work, it is care work, all at once.
Cheeks’s embroidery company is called Tattoo’d Cloth, and people commission him through DM, email, “or honestly, just finding me in the streets,” he says. A Queens native who has lived in Brooklyn since 2008, he has been in the fashion industry for 23 years, working in operational jobs before he taught himself to sew and learned about garment construction. “I found embroidery in 2007 and once I found it, I was able to really just go with it.”
On Sunday, Vogue spoke to Cheeks about his work and the experience of helping New Yorkers celebrate the Knicks’ big win.
Photo: Courtesy of Ramell-Coreen “Cheeks” Frederick
Vogue: Can you tell me about what you do, and how people generally encounter you?
Ramell-Coreen Frederick: When people find me outside, I call that my “going rogue.” It’s a small 3×2 table with my embroidery machine on top of it. I put it on the dolly and literally just push it through Brooklyn or Manhattan and set up on any corner that seems appropriate. I have a power setup that travels with me, and it’s super convenient. People can either give me something that they’re wearing or get something that I might be carrying on me. When you see me outside, I’m honestly just taking this moment to use my surroundings as inspiration and as my current art studio.
My machine is a 104-year-old hand-crank, chainstitch embroidery machine. The version that I was on last night is my Singer 114w103 model. Her name is Jessica. I’ve been using her for nine years now. I have two other ones: a longarm model from France—she’s 124 years old; her name is Bertha, because she’s huge—and I have an international model, an Indian-made model. Her name is Story. I got her last year.
I love working on them. The process is analog. From me designing, whether it be [with] pen and paper or using my digital creative devices, then to drawing it onto the article of clothing or printing it out, and then stitching it literally one stitch at a time. The process is very therapeutic. It can take anywhere from 60 seconds to write a name to my longest piece being 48 hours, which is a 24×36-inch tribute to Chadwick Boseman.
