Rinne and Natalie meet in 2005 during Alabama Adventure Weekend. Rinne photographs the Alabama Chanin collection for over a decade and the two go on to travel, work, and collaborate on multitudes of projects. The discussion below between Kimry Blackwelder and Rinne was conducted via email in July of 2021.
Alabama Studio Sewing + Design launches in 2012 as an encyclopedic compilation of appliqué and reverse appliqué variations. The book includes sewing, stenciling, and fabric design techniques.
To celebrate 10 years of publication in 2022, the book will be re-released with an updated cover and introduction.
Natalie and Rosanne Cash first meet in 2009 through their friend Ann Tenenbaum. Rosanne’s passionate embrace of her life’s work, her poetic gifts of language and song, and her innate creativity have long been a source of inspiration and joy for Natalie. The two soul sisters have visited, traveled, sipped tea, dyed fabric—and hair—and enjoyed one another’s company for over a decade.
Natalie and Jessamyn meet in the fall of 2010, through mutual friend Sally Singer, when Jessamyn is preparing to teach a yearlong course at New York University on the history of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. For the course study, Jessamyn, professor of Global Liberal Studies, chooses—from anywhere in the world—to travel to Florence, Alabama, with her students. They take a sewing workshop at The Factory with Natalie and see firsthand how things are made.
After years working to establish an organic and sustainable supply chain, Alabama Chanin partners with designer Billy Reid to produce grown-to-sewn, organic cotton garments in northwest Alabama. Organic cottonseed is sourced with assistance from Kelly Pepper of the Texas Organic Cotton Marketing Cooperative; seven acres of land is acquired with assistance from K.P. and Katy McNeill, then-partners at Billy Reid; and local farmers, Lisa and Jimmy Lentz, oversee the project. Volunteers from the community and from Birmingham-based Jim ‘N Nick’s BBQ restaurant come together for a “picking party,” in the fall of 2012, yielding 746 pounds of organic cotton. The cotton is ginned locally in Lauderdale County and goes to a 100-year-old mill in North Carolina for spinning and knitting in the summer of 2013 before being sewn into limited-edition items at The Factory. The collaboration launches in fall of 2014.
Natalie and Alabama Chanin partner with Zoe Turnbull and Krista Freibaum, co-founders of Serious Business digital media and PR agency, to host a series of events called Makeshift for New York Design Week. Beginning in 2012, the series occurs each May during New York Design Week for three consecutive years. The Makeshift conversations and events invite a dynamic group of participants to explore the ways in which the fashion, art, and design worlds are linked to the world of craft and DIY. Participants consider how each of these worlds elevates the others and can be used as an agent of change in the world.
From The Kitchen Project, Alabama Adventure Weekend and the first oral histories collected with textile farmers and workers across the region, Natalie builds a deep relationship with the Southern Foodways Alliance, the Center for the Study of Southern Culture, and the University of Mississippi. Projects envisioned by John T. Edge are realized across many symposia. All of these collaborations will eventually inspire and become the basis of Project Threadways, established in 2019.
Vivian Howard and Natalie first meet at the 2011 Southern Foodways Alliance Symposium. They go on to share and cook many meals together, including a Friends of the Café Dinner at The Factory in the summer of 2014.
Natalie and Zoe Turbnull meet in 2003 and develop a strong working relationship and professional and friendly admiration for each other. The two would later collaborate with Krista Freibaum to create the Makeshift series of events during New York Design Week.
In 2010, ten years after arriving back in Alabama, Natalie and Alabama Chanin partner with Commune Design—Los Angeles-based, award-winning design studio—to create a new logo, label, and brand assets. The new logo is a play on Chanel Paris, with “Alabama” large and “Chanin” small underneath. The new mark incorporates the “A” and the “C” as integral parts of a wagon wheel signifying the evolving arms of the business from collections and collaborations to books and workshops. Learn more about the extraordinary work of Commune here. View Commune’s brand assets for Alabama Chanin here. Slide 1: Development for Alabama Chanin signature...
