And she\u2019s done it all from Florence, a small town in the northwest corner of Alabama.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI thought I was coming home for a one-month project,\u201d Chanin says, \u201cand I\u2019m still here 22 years later. It was definitely not what I expected. But this is the path that I walked. I feel very grateful and lucky to have walked this path.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Chanin has reflected on that walk in a new book, Embroidery: Threads and Stories from Alabama Chanin and The School of Making<\/em>.<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe book is a really personal story about my coming home, but it\u2019s also a story about community and, I guess you would call it, creative place making,\u201d she says. \u201cI would hope that readers find the inspiration to make what they want where they want to make it, hopefully to the benefit of the community that they\u2019re making it for.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The book comes at a time of transition for Chanin, 60, who says it will be time soon to step back from running her business so she can spend more time teaching, writing and working on other projects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One of those projects is a nonprofit organization she founded called Project Threadways<\/a> that is exploring the history of textiles. When Chanin returned to Alabama in 2000, she could see how the North American Free Trade Agreement had devastated the textile industry throughout the South, leading to the shutdown of countless plants. She was drawn to the stories of the people who worked in those plants, as well as the farmers who grew the cotton that was used to make t-shirts, socks and other apparel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAs Americans, we began to look down on factory work,\u201d she says. \u201cWe saw it as a lesser existence, which was really not the truth. Most of the workers we interviewed saw themselves as artisans. My little community was known as the t-shirt capital of the world. We were making the highest quality t-shirts and other apparel anywhere in the world. It was very hallowed work. We\u2019ve tried to shine a light on it and change the way people think about this work.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Because for Chanin, the making of an object is every bit as important as its design \u2014 a lesson that she says was driven home for her by Charles Joyner, one of her professors at NC State\u2019s College of Design.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDesign without making is really nothing,\u201d she says. \u201cIf you can\u2019t make it, then it\u2019s just an illustration. It\u2019s an idea that has no form. I\u2019m not saying it has no value. I\u2019m just saying if you are a designer who wants to put materials out in the world, making is a part of that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false,"raw":"\n\n\n\n\n As Natalie Chanin \u201987 looks back on the career she\u2019s built in the world of fashion design, it\u2019s easy to get confused. Her decision to leave the industry\u2019s epicenter of New York City to return to her home state of Alabama was, by any measure, a non-traditional path to success in the fashion business. But then the reason she was returning home more than two decades ago was to create locally-sourced, sustainable apparel, a traditional, time-tested approach that would come to be known as \u201cslow fashion.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n No matter whether you consider it traditional or not, Chanin\u2019s choices have worked. She\u2019s built a successful business, Alabama Chanin<\/a>, she\u2019s seen others take up her mantle of a sustainable approach to fashion (\u201cI see the needle pushing forward, but I wish it was faster.\u201d), and she\u2019s created a culture that values the work that goes into both the designing and making of the apparel she creates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And she\u2019s done it all from Florence, a small town in the northwest corner of Alabama.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI thought I was coming home for a one-month project,\u201d Chanin says, \u201cand I\u2019m still here 22 years later. It was definitely not what I expected. But this is the path that I walked. I feel very grateful and lucky to have walked this path.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/Embroidery-Book-Cover-1.jpg\")
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