J'Adore: Alabama Chanin's "Slow Design"

Natalie “Alabama” Chanin is a Fashion Fund finalist, committed to sustainable living in the American south.

Each piece in her collection is a product of “slow design” and sustainability.

Alabama ChaninAlabama Chanin products are made-by-hand using a combo of new, organic and recycled materials by artisans living in and near her Florence, Alabama community. (Yes, I’ve been there, to a long-closed manufacturing facility.)

America’s textile industry was permanently devastated with NAFTA.

Now people like Natalie Chanin seek to revive it — not to the mass-production facility that it once was, but perhaps more on a European model, of artisan craftsmanship not employing as many people, but reviving long-lost techniques of quilting and sewing.

Alabama Chanin Spring 2010 via Style.comInspired by the Slow Food Movement, Alabama Chanin is run on the same principles that we speak of at Anne of Carversville. The move to embrace Cultural Creative values is strong here, and our most popular articles come from Slow Living principles. See Cultural Creatives Constitute the Core of the Slow Living Movement.

In what could be a marvelous “getaway’, Alabama Chanin offers Alabama Studio Weekend Workshops. I have work to do and must leave the excellent website, but take a look at Natalie’s blog.

Alabama Chanin is an American lifestyle brand dedicated to sustainable, ‘slow design’ livingIf you’re a business person involved in marketing and brand-building, Alabama Chanin is a wonderful example of where “relevant’ brands are headed. I wouldn’t call Alabama Chanin a Smart Sensuality brand; it’s a Cultural Creative one.  But it has a lot of appeal to Smart Sensuality women, with its modernism and authentic values that are housed in America.

I loved the original Project Alabama and J’Adore Alabama Chanin conceptually and also her Spring 2010 collection. See her entire collection at Style.com.  Anne