Natalie “Alabama” Chanin is the founder and creative director of Alabama Chanin. She was born and raised in Florence, Alabama, where her company is based. Natalie has a degree in Environmental Design with a focus on industrial and craft-based textiles from North Carolina State University. After graduation, Natalie worked in the junior sportswear industry on New York’s Seventh Avenue, before moving abroad. For over a decade, Natalie worked as a stylist and costume designer, traveling the globe.
Natalie strives to achieve complete sustainability at every stage of the manufacturing process – from materials and processes to cultural sustainability in the form of preserving hand-sewing skills. Over the years, Alabama Chanin has organically expanded, establishing a family of businesses that includes the Alabama Chanin collection, The School of Making, The Factory Store + Cafe, and Building 14 Design + Manufacturing Services. In 2013, Chanin won the CFDA/Lexus Eco-Fashion Challenge, an award competition that identifies and celebrates the greatest American designers working in the realm of sustainable fashion. Natalie continues to learn and to teach craft traditions, or “living arts,” using them to bridge generational, economic, and cultural gaps.
Natalie has lectured and led workshops for over a decade in the private, public, and the business sector.