Designer Natalie Chanin weaves creativity and community in her latest book, 'Embroidery'

Natalie Chanin tried to quit Florence, Alabama, many times.

She left her hometown in the fertile delta when it was still the t-shirt-making capital of the world for design school in North Carolina. Afterward, she traveled the world, working in fashion and film, living abroad and in New York’s fabled Chelsea Hotel until the moment she stood at a literal and figurative crossroads, filled with fear and vulnerability, and realized Florence, Alabama, might be the only way home to herself.

In the backroads and byways along the Tennessee River, Chanin sought out the women who had quilted alongside her grandmother and aunt to help sew her one-of-a-kind t-shirts, jackets and skirts, using tried-and-true hand stitchery and appliques. But when she returned in 2000, she found her hometown had been gutted economically by the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement. The textile mills had closed and with them the vibrant social center of the community.

This story and more she recounts in the deeply personal and lushly photographed Embroidery: Threads and Stories from Alabama Chanin and the School of Making (Abrams, 2022), which she will be on hand to discuss and sign from 6 to 7 p.m., Tuesday, Feb. 7, at E. Shaver, Starland (the Gingerbread House next to Foxy Loxy on Bull Street).

Ahead of her stop in Savannah, Chanin discussed via Zoom how in the 23 years since she returned home, her clothing and lifestyle company Alabama Chanin has become a lifeline for Florence’s ― and, perhaps, the South's ― “cultural sustainability.“

In the early 2000s when her wares were gaining traction in high-end department stores and with celebrities, Chanin recognized the powerful stories the quilting women of Florence shared, so she produced the documentary Stitch. She also wrote and self-published a handbook to document the sewing techniques of these downhome artisans.

"I didn't invent these techniques. Maybe I invented a new way or developed a new way of working with these techniques," said Chainin, "but ... we wanted to have some sort of document of what we were doing because it would help maintain these techniques through time because we found that they were dying in our own community."

That book, along with others, became part of the Alabama Studio Series, which grew by 2013 into the School of Making ― a component of The Factory complex that includes pattern-making, quilting and embroidery, a machine shop, an Alabama Chanin store, a café and the school, where people can take sewing classes in person, attend live or virtual workshops, or order DIY kits to customize their own patterns.

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Those early conversations with her grandmother's and aunt's contemporaries, many of whom are gone now, led Chanin to establish Project Threadways, a nonprofit organization dedicated to recording and studying the history and impact of textiles.

"At some point along the way in our trajectory as Americans, we decided that it was more important to think than to make," said Chanin, reflecting on how building this business has changed her as well as her community. "It goes back to home economics classes and shop classes being removed from high schools. It has to do with us looking down on factory work ... The truth is, when I came home, I did meet a lot of people who had worked in textiles in this community. Very early on we started doing oral histories and collecting stories from the folks who worked there... Almost everyone we interviewed talked about that job with love."

The First 21 Years:A Walk Through the Archives of Alabama Chanin

It's taken Chanin two decades to rebuild a portion of that industry, but she feels that same deep love and pride as those women did who worked in the t-shirt factories. "As a child, I didn't really know what the word 'designer' meant. I did grow up thinking about American-made being something really strong and beautiful, and that our factories were the heart of our nation. I grew up thinking that we made the best, we could make anything."

If You Go >>

Natalie Chanin

“Embroidery: Threads and Stories from Alabama Chanin and the School of Making”

Book Talk and Signing

6 to 7 p.m., E. Shaver Starland, 1921 Bull St.

Amy Paige Condon is an editor and content coach for Savannah Morning News. You can reach her at acondon@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Designer Natalie "Alabama" Chanin makes stop at E Shaver Starland book tour