Natalie Chanin initiated Alabama Chanin Project Alabama in 2000, a community revitalisation project that combined traditional local craft with re-manufacturing. In 2006, the project was re-formed as Alabama Chanin to maintain the uncompromising, community-based vision for the project. Based in Florence, Alabama, where the designer herself grew up, the company employs local women aged twenty to seventy, to help sew one-of-a-kind, handmade garments, preserving the region’s dwindling tradition of quilting. Chanin initially used only vintage fabrics found at local thrift shops, but now relies on bulk shipments from the Salvation Army to fill all the orders. From low-value waste garments the new products created here have value imbued through the skills of the workers and the story told through the label.
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