Walking the talk in sustainable fashion.

Last week, the Alabama Chanin team, along with our friends Lisa and Jimmy, took to the organic cotton field  we share with the team from Billy Reid. With rubber boots, loppers, and gloves in hand, we were there helping our organic cotton bolls survive after a long summer of drought and heat followed by excessive rain and weed growth.

We walked the rows, hoed, chopped, and pulled until the sun and heat forced us out of the field. Hard to imagine the days in Alabama heat where people were not allowed out of the field. Makes me think about how things were, how things are, and how things will be.
Nine of us barely made a dent in the work that needs to be done. As we documented the day with black and white images, it looked so romantic and felt like a moment from a Willa Cather novel. But the reality behind the black and white is a sordid, ugly history. I can’t pretend that I didn’t think about those that did this work because they had no choice. But I live TODAY and I WANT to grow organic cotton in the state of Alabama TODAY.

Chapter 1 in the Alabama Stitch Book is about the history of cotton in our community and it was my goal to embrace that history with open arms, understanding the ugly past while hopeful for a more beautiful future. The beauty of the outdoors, the detailed shots of our cotton bolls make me proud. This is not glamorous work; it is hard work, and for some people, it once was the difference between life or death – without which, their families may have starved. My family worked cotton, grew small plots of cotton, and lived next to people who made their entire livelihood from this white fiber.

In an age where technology and convenience rule, our trip to the field served as a great reminder of the importance of creating things that last, leaving a legacy for families and communities, alongside our environment.
This community has a strong heritage in farming fields – by machine, by hand, by any means necessary. Images of the “Old South” come to mind as I re-read that sentence, but as I have come to learn, those stylized movie images didn’t reflect the reality of the south.

In the real “Old South,” my family and their neighbors were busy “scraping out a living.” My mother’s father worked a “good job” at the Tennessee Valley Authority AND farmed. My father’s father built houses AND farmed AND raised cattle.

As our group made its way through this beautiful new cotton field, many parts of that heritage came up in conversation. Stories, personal accounts of our parents and grandparents growing up in the fields and working with bloodied hands were shared as we, ourselves, walked rows of weed-ridden cotton. This work, these stories are a part of our souls; they are also part of our company.
At Alabama Chanin, we strive to connect the past with the present. Our company is based on age-old techniques; history is woven into every garment we create. It’s important that we understand the significance found in “modern old-fashioned” ways of doing things, from sewing to farming.

By putting ourselves in the cotton field, we found a deeper understanding of the entire manufacturing process, from planting to production. Sustainability begins with the soil in which we plant those tiny cotton seeds and continues through the dying process of our garments.
Lisa tells us that the local farmers thought we were crazy for planting organic cotton. They think we are especially crazy for working the field by hand. What they didn’t see in the beginning is that IF this works (and it appears that it will), when this works, we will be one of the first to grow organic cotton in the state of Alabama. It’s not about succeeding or failing, it’s about learning, trying, connecting, and believing. Lisa says that a few of the farmers are talking about putting in 100 acres next year to try that “organic” for themselves. Now that is success.

xoNatalie

Natalie Chanin is owner and designer of the American couture line Alabama Chanin and author of three books including Alabama Stitch Book  (2008), Alabama Studio Style (2010) and the upcoming Alabama Studio Sewing + Design which comes out spring 2012. Look for her bi-weekly column, Material Witness here and follow her on Facebook and her own blog at Alabama Chanin.

The post Alabama Chanin’s Natalie Chanin on Working Her Own Organic Cotton Fields appeared first on EcoSalon.

Random Ruffle T-Shirt with Natalie “Alabama” Chanin from Creativebug on Vimeo.

Natalie “Alabama” Chanin on Creativebug from Creativebug on Vimeo.

So, what are you waiting for? Make a pattern. Make a print. Make a difference.

The post CreativeBug Workshop: Alabama Chanin Ruffles Us Up appeared first on EcoSalon.

A new series of how-to videos aims to inspire crafters.

Sometimes its not about looking for the answer to a problem, it’s making sure you’re asking the right question. When it comes to the issues caused by our addiction to overconsumption – global warming, deforestation, pollution and animal extinction – a growing number of people are asking the surprisingly simple question, “What will you make today?”

Creativebug, a new series of how-to videos for DIY’ers, recently launched to inspire you. For $25 a month, subscribers have unlimited access to a continuously updated library of creative workshops in knitting, crochet, sewing, jewelry, entertaining, home decorating and kids crafts.

So, what are you waiting for? Make a pattern. Make a print. Make a difference.

The site features some of the country’s biggest talents, including Debbie Stoller, Stitch ‘n Bitch, Heather Ross, Weekend Sewing, Christine Schmidt, Print Workshop and EcoSalon favorite, Natalie Chanin of Alabama Chanin.

Natalie Chanin’s workshops premiered this week.

This is not your average YouTube type tutorial. Creativebug’s state of the art audio and video production quality, short video segments and entertaining presentation make the videos accessible to artists of all skill levels.

“We want everyone to have access to world‐class instructors regardless of where they live and to learn when it’s convenient for them,” says Jeanne Lewis, Founder and CEO of Creativebug. “We believe everyone has a creative side and we offer an affordable and accessible way to learn new skills.”

The empowering mantras of the crafter, “Do it yourself,” “Reduce, Reuse and Recycle,” might just be the best way to achieving sustainability. The joy of creating things that have meaning to us, these are the things we’ll want to keep.

Like what you see? Stay tuned. We’ll be featuring one of Creativebug’s how-to videos weekly on a new series here on EcoSalon.

The post Creativebug: What Will You Make Today? appeared first on EcoSalon.

Fashion, craft, and design communities find Mecca in Manhattan.

Tuesday night something amazing happened in New York City. More than one hundred people gathered at the Standard in East Village, a luxury hipster hotel on Cooper Square, and joined together for a sing-along and finger-knitting. Really. It happened. I was there. Everyone looked elated, from the handsome 20-something guy across from me (who I initially assumed was a supermodel but is actually an up-and-coming fashion designer), to the chic magazine editors and design company executives who were sipping wine before they settled into the low black couches.

Everyone who was lucky enough to secure entry into this unique event seemed transported by the simple act of transforming a length of cotton jersey cord into a knitted necklace, by taking an old folk song, riffing on a few verses, and making something new.

Singer and songwriter Rosanne Cash led the sing-along. Natalie Chanin, founder and creative director of the fashion and lifestyle company Alabama Chanin, led the knitalong. The occasion was MAKESHIFT: Shifting Thoughts on Design, Fashion, Craft, and DIY, a panel discussion kicking off a week of MAKESHIFT events organized by Chanin. Also speaking were Cathy Bailey, owner and designer of Heath Ceramics, Maria Cornejo, designer for Zero+Maria Cornejo, and Jessamyn Hatcher, a professor of fashion studies and the humanities at New York University. Moderating was Andrew Wagner, a DIY columnist for the New York Times and the editorial director of Krrb.

(From L-R): Andrew Wagner, Natalie Chanin, Cathy Bailey, Rosanne Cash, Jessamyn Hatcher and Maria Cornejo

“It’s like a small Pandora’s box opening,” Chanin says of the evening in which the main topic of conversation was the joy and value of making. “Making is as an integral part of all creative, design, and fashion industries. A conversation has been started and we hope it will continue.”

Cathy Bailey of Heath Ceramics recalled the tour she took of the company’s factory back in 2003, before she and her husband bought it. “Nothing was outsourced, everything was produced there. I think that’s what gave it that energy, that hum. There was such focus.” Bailey had, until then, been working as an industrial designer, but “Design wasn’t enough for me,” she says. “Something is missing when you’re only designing, when you’re not making.”

Maria Cornejo concurred. After leaving the fashion business, in 1998 she decided to open a store called Zero, where she and her team gradually started making things. “We put a rack of clothes at the front of the store; if people reacted to them, we made more, she recalled. “I miss those days when it was so hands-on.”

I personally grew up in a home where the handmade was revered and I edit craft books for a living – in fact, I edited all three of Chanin’s books: Alabama Stitch Book, Alabama Studio Style, and Alabama Studio Sewing + Design, the one that just came out and inspired the initial plans for MAKESHIFT 2012. So, given my background and day job, getting together to finger-knit is not as novel to me as it is to a lot of people. Honoring the maker is what I try to do every day. And it’s what Chanin does in her books – in which she shares instructions for the traditional techniques with which her clothing and homewares are made. “We make fashion,” Chanin explained on Tuesday night. “And we teach people how to make fashion.”

Rosanne Cash, who is an avid knitter and recently began hand-stitching Alabama Chanin clothing, told us: “All I want to do is follow Natalie around whatever she does.”

Chanin’s mission for MAKESHIFT is to break down some of the walls that exist between the fashion, craft, and design communities in order to find a meeting place so that “every maker, as well as the designs, products, and lives they touch, will be enriched.”

If the openness of everyone’s faces as they formed their necklaces on Tuesday night is any indication, the walls are coming down.

To learn more about the remaining MAKESHIFT 2012 events, go here.

Melanie Falick is the publishing director of STC Craft / Melanie Falick Books, an imprint of Stewart, Tabori & Chang and Abrams. She is the author of numerous knitting books and the former editor-in-chief of Interweave Knits magazine.

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VideoThe handmade world of designer Natalie Chanin.

In a feature Handmade Portraits series by Etsy we get an insider look at the handmade world of Natalie Chanin’s label, Alabama Chanin, a clothing line that is 100% completely sewn by hand by local artisans. You can learn more about Chanin by reading her series here on EcoSalon called Material Witness.

The post Video: Handmade Portraits – Alabama Chanin appeared first on EcoSalon.

Natalie Chanin releases the third book in her sewing trilogy.

It’s no secret we have a thing for Natalie Chanin of Alabama Chanin here on EcoSalon.

An entrepreneur, designer, author, lecturer and strong businesswoman who went back to her roots in Florence, Alabama to stimulate local economy (as well as her own quest for a little life/work fulfillment), Natalie is a one-woman rocket ship of sustainable goodness.

In her third book Alabama Studio Sewing + Design, we get to pick up on the “conversations and techniques begun with the Alabama Stitch Book and Alabama Studio Style.” With each book lending itself to the other as to the workings and lifestyle of the Alabama Chanin woman, readers of all three books will now have the tools to make anything they’ve ever seen on the Alabama Chanin site – minus the in-house Depression Era stitchers.

We caught up with Natalie this past week to tell us more about her new DIY masterpiece. Speaking of that book, did we mention that we’re also giving a copy away? It’s no lie. Just leave a comment at the bottom of this story and you are entered to win!

How is Alabama Studio Sewing + Design different from the Alabama Stitch Book and Alabama Studio Style?

Alabama Studio Sewing + Design is really the culmination of what was originally seen as a trilogy.  Each book builds on the other, but also stands on its own.  However, this book is more about the actual “fashion” of what we do… more intricate, more sophisticated, more patterns, more techniques…

With the compilation of the three books, you should be able to recreate any fabric and technique that we have ever designed at Alabama Chanin.

Talk about the importance of sharing “techniques that were once understood as essential survival skills?” Have we as a society lost touch with the importance of using our hands to create?

There is much talk at the moment about how being able to “do” or “make” for ourselves also makes us HAPPY.  I believe that this is a huge leap in understanding human behavior and a missing piece in our role as human beings today.  How simple: develop the capacity to do for yourself (in whatever small way) AND build neural pathways to happiness. I think back to my grandmother’s ever-moving hands and her pride in doing for her family and it makes me sigh… “Yes, I understand.”

I see the open-sourcing you offer in Alabama Studio Sewing + Design working for Alabama Chanin in two ways: 1., It gives people the opportunity to own Alabama Chanin by making and 2., it gives people an appreciation for what you do as a designer. Am I right?

The original thought in writing the books was to empower people to be able to make our garments.

I wrote in the introduction: “I have been asked many times why I choose to write books and, in the process, open-source (that is, freely share) instructions for making Alabama Chanin’s couture collections. The answer is not as straightforward as you might think. It is based on my belief that good design should be available to all and my desire to build a company that is sustainable in all of its practices. By sharing our skills in these books, I hope to shed light on not only how we can preserve precious natural resources but also how we can preserve and protect techniques that were once understood as essential survival skills.

 While Alabama Chanin dresses, skirts, tops, and coats have been beautifully featured in countless magazines and newspapers, and on television shows and websites, they have also been criticized for being “elitist,” and “inaccessible” because of their price. Truth be told, our clothing is extremely expensive. This is because it is made from domestic, organic, custom-dyed cotton jersey that is cut, painted, sewn, and embellished by hand in America by skilled artisans. And while we sell our collection to some of the most upscale stores and clients, we run our business in the most down-to-earth, simple way imaginable. In the beginning, we worked from a three-bedroom, brick, ranch-style house in rural Alabama, a home that my grandfather built. Today we work from a reclaimed textile factory built in the 1980s—when manufacturing was booming in the South. Our studio—which we call The Factory—has become a busy hub, where we concentrate on building a zero-waste company. Our employees earn a living wage, and while none of us is getting rich, at least in terms of our bank accounts, we are, indeed, rich in spirit, belief, passion, and friendship. “Elitist” is the antithesis of how the company works and who I am as a designer, entrepreneur, and citizen.”

 The piece I think you initially understood – better than I – is that the books have ALSO given a broader range of people an appreciation of the work we are doing. Thank you.

Do you see the DIY movement getting stronger? Is this maybe an entire generation of women ready to use their hands again to create their own clothing and be a little more self-sufficient?

I do see DIY as a very quickly growing movement – or should I say, a “remembering” of where we come from. And I find it very inspiring to see people – young and old, man and woman – searching for their voices in this conversation and using these tools as a form of sustainability – both cultural and physical. My interest in this conversation is to help find the intersection of DIY, Craft, Fashion and Design (all with capital letters).

Image: Abrams Books

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From a wasteful fashion industry emerges the Zero Waste movement.

It is said that the next great war will not be over oil, but water. So when it takes 1,800 gallons of water to grow enough cotton to produce a single pair of jeans, it is extraordinary that cloth has become a readily disposable commodity of little value. Indicative of this is the fact that on average 15 – 20% of cloth needed to produce a garment is wasted and the useless remnants are destined for the incinerator, landfill or occasionally as mattress filler.

In 2008 China, one of the world’s largest exporters of textiles and clothing produced 31.8 billion meters of fabric in January to July alone. You could reasonably estimate that almost 5 billion meters of that fabric was wasted. This astonishing wastefulness is caused by the entrenched traditions of the fashion industry, which separate the stages of garment design and production into hierarchies where the designers often work isolated from production. It is a system that fails to acknowledge that textiles are a finished product with energy invested into their design and manufacture and which seems primarily interested in the next new thing, forgetting also about what happens to garments at the end of their fashionable lives. So what’s being done about it?

Zero Waste cutting

Over the last couple of years I have had the privilege of working with Parsons Assistant Professor Timo Rissanen to bring together the work of 12 designers from all over the world in a zero waste fashion exhibition called Yield: Making Fashion Without Making Waste. All of these designers engage in some way with what has come to be known as Zero Waste Fashion Design (ZWFD). ZWFD involves designing clothing that in some way eliminates waste from the production or consumption of clothing.

This can be achieved in a number of ways and through various approaches; some designers use the left over fabric pieces to make other garments or products; others eliminate the creation of waste altogether when designing their patterns. Many designers use second hand clothing in order to remove waste from the post consumer end of the fashion consumption cycle, while others use innovative technology to make garments in completely new ways. All are in some way are addressing the huge volumes of textile waste contributed by the fashion and textile industry and consumers every year – a massive 30kg per person per year in UK and U.S.

Piles of second hand clothes for sale

Designing Out the Waste
Anybody who has cut out and sewn up a garment will be aware of the pieces between the pattern that are not incorporated into the finished garment. Many people save such offcuts for future projects, but there will typically be pieces that are either too small or oddly shaped to be of any use. These are routinely discarded, passing through the trash, en route to the landfill. In industry, markers are designed to eliminate as much of this wastage as possible in order to save money. However, the design of the garments is dictated by aesthetics and market alone, inevitably resulting in surplus pieces that cannot be used. The company can either creatively use this left over 15% to make different products, or by designing both the positive and negative spaces of the pattern it is possible to reduce this figure to zero. ZWFD aims to tick all the boxes of aesthetics, fit, market and zero waste.

The kimono as a historic example of Zero Waste cutting

These approaches, while sometimes appearing new, are in fact as old as clothing itself. For hundreds of years, aesthetics, and to a lesser extent functionality, have been the two pillars of fashion design, and when coupled with the slightly more contemporary desire for speed and change, has lead to the proliferation of too much fashion, too many collections, too often. Historically fashion was expensive because cloth was expensive and time consuming to produce. This meant it made sense to be careful about how you used the cloth you had and how you cared for the clothing you owned. Mending was common and using cloth frugally was standard practice – there are examples of “zero waste garments” from almost every continent and culture, and we’ve been practicing it for centuries.

Admittedly designing ZWF isn’t the easiest when first starting out. This type of design is not about numbers, it’s about experimentation, playfulness and taking a risk, all while being mindful of the impact of your actions. It slows the design of fashion down and forces many parts of the fashion chain to think about waste and material use from a design and production perspective. Many of the problems that exist in the fashion industry begin with ideas of separation, both geographical and hierarchical. Whether designer/producer, producer/consumer, consumption and disposal, the greater the distance and separation between the stakeholders in the fashion chain, the greater the likelihood of discordance and a lack of appreciation of what is really going on.

Holly McQuillan’s own Zero Waste Designs

Designing ZWF needs to be done with either a close relationship between designer and pattern cutter, or by a designer who is the pattern cutter, any other arrangement will be an exercise in futility. The change enables a close relationship between market, aesthetic and fabric yield to flourish, and from this, beautiful things are possible.

A designer attempting a zero waste garment design cannot simply ask, “have I used ALL of that piece of cloth?”

Doing only this would potentially result in garments that no one would want to purchase. So with ZWFD and indeed all sustainable design, aesthetics cannot be at the expense of the environment, just as the environment cannot be at the expense of aesthetics. There must exist a harmony between both.

Writer Holly McQuillan, is the Yield exhibit’s curator, and is also a designer and lecturer in the fashion design program at Massey University’s College of Creative Arts in Wellington, New Zealand.

Top image: McQuillan’s Yield Exhibit in Chicago

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ColumnNatalie Chanin’s bi-weekly column, Material Witness, offers a seasoned designer’s perspective on the fashion industry, textile history and what happens when love for community trumps all.

There was a time not so long ago on humanity’s calendar that sewing was not considered “women’s work,” but rather a tool for survival.
Hunter/gatherers looking for food on a cold winter’s day, some miles from their camp, might have a shoe wear through and break, and their ability to sew that shoe back together in a simple repair stitch might have meant the difference between safe return to the camp, the loss of a foot to frostbite – or an even worse fate, death.
It is thought that healers began to sew human wounds back together in ancient Egypt – formed as a unified state around 3150 BC, and most likely before.  Over 5000 years ago, sewing was taught, not as craft, but as a survival skill necessary to human life. In fact, a heavy-duty needle and thread for repairing clothing and equipment (and sewing one’s own flesh) is still included in first aid and survival kits today.
Sewing was an invention that greatly aided our advancement as a people and it is believed that needle and thread existed as early as 15,000 years ago.

History World writes:

A long slow sequence of invention and discovery has made possible the familiar details of our everyday lives. Mankind’s programme of improvements has been erratic and unpredictable. But good ideas are rarely forgotten. They are borrowed and copied and spread more widely, in an accelerating process which makes the luxuries of one age the necessities of the next.”

In districts where warm clothing is necessary, Stone Age people stitch skins together with threads of tendon or leather thongs. For each stitch they bore a hole and then hook the thread through it.

The development of a bone or ivory needle with an eye speeds up the process immeasurably. The hole is now created by the same implement which then pulls the thread through, in an almost continuous movement. Needles of this kind have been found in caves in Europe from the late palaeolithic period, about 15,000 years ago. Several are so thin as to imply the use of materials such as horsehair for the thread.

How is it that 15,000 years later, a survival skill of the highest order and an important invention for humanity has come to be classified as “women’s work” and, at the same time, declassified as a life skill? In our Alabama Chanin sewing workshops and group or corporate meetings around a sewing table, it is ALWAYS the men and boys that seem to enjoy the sewing the most.  Perhaps it feels like they have been given permission to try something that they have been culturally banned from, without fear of judgment.

A friend recently sent me an email that her son’s math teacher was using sewing in math class to demonstrate themes of geometry and symmetry.  What a great lesson for life: Life Skill (Math) + Life Skill (Sewing) = Sustainable Life + Learning. Although the students most likely do not recognize this at this point in their lives, they will most certainly look back one day with understanding.

Neuroscientists today agree that using our hands also affects the way our brains function. More proof is uncovered every year that simple survival skills like gardening, cooking, and sewing cause the neurotransmitters in our brains to send out signals of happiness.  (I understand that this is a grossly over-simplified explanation of the brain’s complex workings, but research like Kelly Lambert’s Lifting Depression are changing the way the neuroscience community thinks about action and happiness and the power of the brain.)

I say we as the greater humankind (women AND men) take back our skills and our happiness. I say that we occupy our hands; we democratize sewing (cooking, gardening, making) and restore these useful, and sustainable, life skills back to their honored place in our everyday lives. Through reestablishing these abilities to create our food, clothing, and shelter, we will begin to intimately connect with  our beloved communities and, in the process, begin sewing this beautiful nation of ours back together again – one simple stitch at a time.

Natalie Chanin is owner and designer of the American couture line Alabama Chanin and author of three books including Alabama Stitch Book  (2008), Alabama Studio Style (2010) and the upcoming Alabama Studio Sewing + Design which comes out spring 2012. Look for her bi-weekly column, Material Witness here and follow her on Facebook and her own blog at Alabama Chanin.

The post Natalie Chanin: Sewing for Humankind appeared first on EcoSalon.

ColumnNatalie Chanin’s bi-weekly column, Material Witness, offers a seasoned designer’s perspective on the fashion industry, textile history and what happens when love for community trumps all.

I never really thought much about what punks, pirates, and the Spanish Armada had to do with farmers markets or sustainable life until I saw Richard McCarthy – a pirate of the very best order – speak. He has quite an amazing story to tell, made palatable by his charming humor, an easy-to-understand presentation, and, more importantly, good work.

I have thought so much about Richard, his work in the farmers markets – and relating his work to the Spanish Armada – since hearing him speak at the SFA Symposium in Oxford, Mississippi. We will have to trust Richard’s accounts of naval history to be true. But, correct or not, I have thought about this presentation countless times and wrote to Richard on New Year’s Day.

I told him that working to change a fast-fashion industry feels like swimming upstream backwards – on a good day. His talk, with its simple illustrations, some good punk analogies, and the account of the sinking of the Spanish Armada give me hope and make my swim seem a little easier.

Watch his talk here and follow my rough summary of his talk and illustrations below. I have pulled out the core that relates to all cultural assets (food, clothing, shelter) but please watch the entire presentation for more literal workings of punks and pirates.
Richard begins his presentation: “I want to start where, I am sure all SFA talks begin, obscure 16th Century Naval Military History.”

In the late 16th Century, when Spain was at its Imperial peak, it had the world’s leading naval fleet, with the largest ships in the known world. It was impressive and intimidating and Spain felt that they had reached the pinnacle and had to knock out their competition – the Dutch – with their fleet, the Armada.

The Armada seemed too big to fail. But, Richard points out that their SCALE might actually have been the problem. In order to take out the Dutch, they had to sail past England – that small island in northern Europe with no organized navy.

They sailed through English waters and discovered that Queen Elizabeth had organized merchant seamen, rag-tag groups known as “Elizabeth’s Pirates,” with small and nimble ships, able to sail circles around the Spanish Armada and sink the fleet. Richard points out that this is a great example of asymmetrical warfare: where small was GOOD because it was able to out-maneuver the large (and flabby) Spanish Armada.

Richard reminds us that, aside from dashing clothing, pirates have been known for two really important themes: 1) Plunder, creating incredible mischief for the empire and, of course, 2) trying to get as much booty as they could from the empire.

In recent accounts of pirates, Richard notes that there were fulcrums of democratic organization in the way that the plunder was shared and the way decisions were made. There were seeds of democracy.
But what does this mean for us today?

Today we have cultural assets – treasures – like food and music (I am including fashion and architecture, too) that we have to attend to in order to keep them growing, as there are forces that want to homogenize them.

There are large corporations who want to make these cultural assets part of the “system” by homogenizing them, giving them a branding or corporate identity. The potential by-product of this is that the cutting-edge cultural assets are being dulled down, their sharp edges rounded by removing the regional taste and place and sound.
This is the struggle that we face – the battle between commercialization of our culture and our desire to protect the parts which are authentic.

In the music scene of the 1970s, we saw punks – social pirates – having an angry reaction to this homogenization of culture. There was benefit to creating mischief and social anxiety within the system. One of the results of this mischief was a democratization of music culture. If “official media” had nothing to offer you, this meant opening your own label, starting your own club, or writing a fanzine.
Bottom Line: It was an incredible DIY impulse. Sound familiar?

According to Richard, this has a parallel today in the food industry where we see large-scale homogenization of food threatening to remove the “complex, authentic textures and tastes that we want to treasure.”  The big-box scale of retail diminishes the importance of direct human contact with those who produce our food.

There is no room for human scale in the big box Stalinism that has become our food culture today (insert the cultural asset of your choice ____).

But, Richard asserts, there are certainly people and organizations that create mischief and plunder. This mischief is present in the independent films and guerrilla journalism emerging around food and in the lawsuits against fast food companies.

In the turbulent waters of industry today, we are beginning to see a rise of the democratic impulse. “We see lots of other pirate’s ships like our pirate ships.” They are ships that we may touch, we may see, we may work with – all similar pirate ships working in the high seas to try and be fulcrums for change.

And there has been quite a lot of success in retaking some of our local cultural assets; farmers markets abound; people (the pirates) are making a difference.

And in this success, we have to resist the call to become larger in scale because that larger scale, the Armada, may not be sustainable. As Richard said, “I think that we need to be really focused at being BETTER at what we are doing and not necessarily LARGER with what we are doing.”

Looking at the state of the corporate world, the system appears to be in crisis. And, Richard says, there are those up in the system looking out at the pirate ships and saying “Why are they having all the fun?” This large corporate “Armada” and those who work in it, see that smaller pirates are out there innovating. And, in seeing this, they begin to reach out to the pirates. And, with this, the pirates have to decide how to move forward.

Maybe instead of reforming it, maybe we can begin to sail in formation, creating communities and cultivating relationships. Because, in the end, we may sail alone but we have to find ways to anchor together on this big, beautiful sea.

What if we did this for fashion – what would it look like?

Natalie Chanin is owner and designer of the American couture line Alabama Chanin and author of three books including Alabama Stitch Book  (2008), Alabama Studio Style (2010) and the upcoming Alabama Studio Sewing + Design which comes out spring 2012. Look for her bi-weekly column, Material Witness here and follow her on Facebook and her own blog at Alabama Chanin.

Image: Hakan Dahlstrom

The post Natalie Chanin: Punks & Pirates appeared first on EcoSalon.

ColumnNatalie Chanin’s bi-weekly column, Material Witness, offers a seasoned designer’s perspective on the fashion industry, textile history and what happens when love for community trumps all.

This is a conversation that played out in my head countless times this last week:
“I need to sit down and write the EcoSalon column.”
“The laundry really needs to get done.”
“I NEED to sit down and write the EcoSalon column.”
“Maybe, I should go weed the garden.”
“I NEED to SIT DOWN NOW and write the EcoSalon column.”
“There is that bird pecking around in the yard, I could go stare at it for a while.”

It is Thursday afternoon and the post is not done. We have ALL been in this situation before. It’s the story where the work ahead seems daunting, or maybe we have done so much work recently that we don’t have the mental capacity to think, or maybe it’s just that our children are away and the house is silent – something that happens very rarely. For whatever reason, we pause, sit, stare at the wall, and then go make a tea.

As I sit and drink my tea, my mind wanders back to a day eleven years ago when I arrived in the city of my childhood, Florence, Alabama, to start the “project” that has become Alabama Chanin. As many of you my already know, years ago, I had a dream to create 2000 one-of-a-kind t-shirts. I wrote a proposal, raised the money (thank you Lisa), and prepared to come home, and arrived on December 23rd, 2000.

My mother’s sister had just purchased a home that was built by my father’s father, next to one she was living in that was built by  their father. She phoned me in New York a week before I was to arrive and asked: “Would you like to rent the old McCorkle place?” “YES,” I replied.  So, I rented the house – sight unseen – and headed home to the Shoals Community for what I thought was to be four weeks. Eleven years later, I am still here.

The house my aunt had just purchased had been empty for quite some time as the former owner had moved to a nursing home. In the south, an entire town can disappear in two years or less when left unattended. Vegetation thrives, animals root, and anything left for abandoned soon begins to melt back into the earth. This is the power of nature.

Days before I arrived, my aunt and her husband had cut their way into the backdoor with a chain saw. They opened up the house, took a quick order of affairs, and provided a mattress for my first night.  On that cold December day, sometime around dark, I arrived in a New York City rental car to a house that smelled like a combination of old fried chicken bones, a family of cats, and something vaguely reptilian. (In Alabama, when you catch that whiff, you automatically assume snakes.)

While I was grateful for this opportunity to be able to realize my dream project, I laid down that night in the middle of an empty room, and cried.  It seemed I had made a very bad mistake. My dream wasn’t quite so dreamy after all.

My mind raced around the fact that I had ABSOLUTELY no idea how I was ever going to make this project come together. I had been winging it all along and was not competent enough to pull this off. I had a film crew arriving from Austria in ten days to shoot a documentary film about old-time quilting circles, and I didn’t have a place to make them a cup of coffee. If I were to realize my plan of presenting 200 one-of-a-kind t-shirts during New York Fashion Week in six weeks, I was going to have to start working the very next morning to get them done. Lying on a borrowed mattress, I sobbed, whined, and beat myself up, while I constantly kept watch for the movement of anything wild – be it bug, reptile, or otherwise.

I am not sure when I fell asleep but I did finally sleep a few winks and woke up without snakes (who are known to seek out human warmth). I sat up, red-eyed, and assessed the situation. The sun was shining. I was sleeping in a heart-pine paneled room circa 1950s style that was a kitchen/open living room. Bright yellow and green vinyl tile a la 1970s crossed the space to the back door that looked out to a scrub forest which was really just an over-grown back yard. I don’t remember a sound.

I sat there in the silence as my mind continued to race:
“I really should get up and make some coffee.”
“I should just lie back down and stare at the ceiling.”
“I really should get up and get started.”
“Well, there is that bird pecking around in the yard, I could go stare at it for a while.”
Sound familiar?

To make a long story short, I got up that morning – Christmas Eve – and made some tea in a borrowed pot. And after the tea was done, I filled the kitchen sink with water and took one of the rags my aunt had so generously left and started to clean.  My thought was to clean a section of the kitchen counter that I would have a place to sit back down.
I proceeded to clean the whole kitchen.

When the kitchen was finished, I looked around. The room – and my life – felt completely overwhelming; however, I decided that I could clean just one of those heart-pine boards. As I began to wash that first board, underneath its black patina, a beautiful pattern emerged. I looked at that 300 year old piece of wood, and I cleaned, and I stopped thinking. When the first board was finished, I realized that every board in that room must be just as beautiful, and I cleaned a second one. By the time the sun started to go down behind that overgrown backyard, I had washed every board in that room – one board at a time. Finally sitting down, I realized that I had the stamina to do anything that needed to be done to realize my dream. In that moment, I knew in my heart that board-by-board is the way we get things done in life.  All we need is the focus to see one board at a time.

In this New Year, when I think of running my business, raising my daughter, writing a post for EcoSalon, or that really overwhelming thought of making a difference in a fast-fashion world, I will remind myself that we are assured a better place – and real change – if we keep at it board-by-board.

P.S. With the Vienna film crew who did have coffee in my kitchen after all.

Natalie Chanin is owner and designer of the American couture line Alabama Chanin and author of three books including Alabama Stitch Book  (2008), Alabama Studio Style (2010) and the upcoming Alabama Studio Sewing + Design which comes out spring 2012. Look for her bi-weekly column, Material Witness here and follow her on Facebook and her own blog at Alabama Chanin.

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