If the philosophers and economists are right, such stories reflect renewed possibilities for building communities, for growing businesses, and for practicing everyday forms of enchantment, ethics, and sustainability. It is time to expand our way of thinking about the relationship between craft and fashion, between the self-made and the ready-to-wear, between fashion as intellectual property and fashion as an open source. What can we learn from the fields of music, product design, and education? Does a backward glance help us see how fashion was at the forefront of these innovations from the start? What is a Vogue pattern if not an open source? What are les petits mains other than artists?

SHIFTING THOUGHTS ON DESIGN, FASHION, COMMUNITY, CRAFT & DIY

Over the four days of New York Design Week (May 19-22, 2012), Alabama Chanin–in collaboration with its fashion and design partners–is organizing a series of talks, workshops, and gatherings with leaders in the fashion, design, and craft/DIY communities. The events bring together a dynamic combination of industry leaders to explore the ways in which the fashion, art, and design worlds are inextricably linked to the world of craft/DIY and how each of these worlds elevates the others. We look to create an intersection–a meeting point–to explore, discuss, and celebrate the role of local production, handmade, and craft/DIY in fashion and design as a way to empower individuals, businesses, and communities.

“Craft” might seem like it’s for the amateurs, and “fashion” for the auteurs. Yet we live in an age where creativity and innovation are increasingly found in collaborations between makers and users, crafters and designers, designers and manufacturers, and in the loosening of the boundaries between them. Open sourcing and the emergence of DIY everything (from apps to dresses to education) are THE design stories of the 21st century. If the philosophers and economists are right, such stories reflect renewed possibilities for building communities, for growing businesses, and for practicing everyday forms of enchantment, ethics, and sustainability. It is time to expand our way of thinking about the relationship between craft and fashion, between the self-made and the ready-to wear, between fashion as intellectual property and fashion as an open source. What can we learn from the fields of music, product design, and education? Does a backward glance help us see how fashion was at the forefront of these innovations from the start? What is a Vogue pattern if not an open source? What are les petits mains other than artists?

Visit here to learn more about the events and the growing number of participants.

We look forward to discussing these topics and exploring questions further with all of our participants and guests over the course of the next weeks.

Some of these products have been staples in my daily wear for ages; they’ve held up to the test of time. I look forward to incorporating newer products into my lifestyle for years to come. Please share with us your experience with these makers, as well as any other companies, artisans, or manufacturers from the United States that have a presence in your wardrobe, and life.

I’ve been on a quest for the perfect t-shirt for years and years, seeking the right cut, fit, and feel. I hope Alabama Chanin will one day manufacture our perfect t-shirt (more on that later). Until then I have found comfort and quality in Three Dots, whose factory and corporate headquarters is based in Garden Grove, CA. My casual days at the office (of which there are many) include one of these basics with our swing skirt.

I’ve written many times on the art of wabi-sabi, referencing the Japanese beauty aesthetic in design. Earnest Sewn takes that aesthetic and applies it to the design of their jeans, while incorporating denim’s “Americana past.” The denim (and clothing) manufacturer prides itself on “workmanship and commitment to authenticity” in each pair of jeans. Part of their brand concept: “Each piece of Earnest Sewn is hand-crafted to perfection right here in the United States; the end result, a byproduct of our obsession.”

While in New York for MakeShift, we stopped in at 3×1, a storefront in SoHo with a jean manufacturing facility in-house. In the beautifully lit space, glass walls enclose a cutting and sewing room and allow you to see the making process in-store (by 11 sewers on staff). You may design and customize your own pair of jeans, or purchase from their already made collection.

Soft Star Shoes (shared in the comments of our last Made in America post) provides a customization service of shoes. All their shoes, including men’s, women’s, and (adorable) children’s shoes are handcrafted in their workshop loft in Corvallis, Oregon. Made to order, the shoes are comfortable and fun.  They are crafted using materials such as USA sourced leathers and vegan options.

Lastly, Zkano, a family-operated organic cotton sock manufacturer, is very close to home. Not only because they are based in Fort Payne, Alabama—a three hour drive from Florence—but because of the company’s ideals: all organic. They care about the quality of the product as much as they do its environmental impact.

Fort Payne has a similar story to our textile manufacturing community. NAFTA and outsourcing led to an absence in the textile industry jobs; however, Emi-G Knitting, a twenty-year old sock manufacturing company remained in business. Around three years ago, daughter Gina, began working with her parents’ company to make organic active, crew, and fashion socks. Read more about the company here.

We realize there are many, many more artisans, crafters, companies, and manufacturers that are producing here in North America. We’d like to thank these ‘makers’ for their commitment as we continue to highlight the beautiful, ethical, and passionate work that is Made in the USA.

xoNatalie

We had the pleasure of hearing Tift’s amazing voice at her performance for the opening of our pop-up shop at the Billy Reid store in New York.

We hope to see Tift in New York, or perhaps Alabama, very soon.
xoNatalie

Today, I take inspiration in a book (and my Mother’s Day present this year from Butch and Maggie) which has quickly become one of my favorites.

Historical, humorous, and the most beautifully fascinating images and illustrations.

During my days as a costume designer, I hand-picked beads and sequins, positioned them just so, and saw the costume come to life in the details. As I’ve said many times before, “Life is in the details.”

And as Ernest Hemingway said, “The circus is the only spectacle I know that, while you watch it, gives the quality of a happy dream.”

Embellish your life and pick up a copy of The Circus Book: 1870-1950.

“Controlled Mayem to dazzle and delight.” Indeed.

Read more for the whole story:

Many have already written, photographed, or posted about their experiences during the week.

Ellie Levine at STC Craft  created a timeline of the MAKESHIFT events – a beautiful recap using images and social media platforms which you can read here.

Compiled below are reflections and lingering thoughts to help continue our MAKESHIFT conversation into next year.

Keep in mind (and close to heart) what is valuable and inspiring as you design, create, and make.

xoNatalie

“I was so honored to be asked to participate in the Makeshift event. I felt a bit like an interloper, since my creations are much more ephemeral than most of the other art represented by the extraordinary people involved. The makeshift song we created, as a whole group, was thrilling. The audience participation was so much fun, and so inspiring. Creating as a community is something that sustains me, like food and water. The community I work with of musicians, audience, crew and collaborators of all stripes, sustains me and gives me strength and courage to do the solitary and sometimes isolating work of a writer. This idea, this FACT, was brought into such beautiful and stark relief at the Makeshift event. I recognized once again that in creativity, the sum is often greater than the parts.” – Rosanne Cash

“I loved everything you did for the Makeshift event. But what I loved most was getting a chance to hear from people in completely different areas of craft/design. Having a chance to come together–while making something, like our yarn necklaces–and to talk about the intersection of these areas in community—that’s enormously valuable, especially since I do much of my work alone and, as a result, I crave input from others in neighboring fields. Some of my best inspiration comes from trading ideas with other creative friends, and that happens on a grander scale when we’re working in different areas. We can build ideas from sharing and from exchanges like this.” – Liesel Gibson

“Being a part of Makeshift 2012 made me realize that sometimes being very far away geographically and seemingly out of the loop is such an archaic notion when people are connected by their truest intentions and passions. I have been living in Bulgaria off and on for the past two years, and I occasionally feel a bit sorry for myself when I think that I might be operating very far away from NYC, what many view as the epicenter of art, craft, design, fashion, and style. I love my life in Sofia and the connections I have made with very talented makers in villages and communities throughout Bulgaria. Makeshift 2012 made me realize that the textile research and cultural inquiry that I have been doing overseas is even more connected to rural American craft traditions and slow fashion than I might have surmised. This has energized me to go forth and let people here know that what seems so far away and unattainable is something that they have known about all along. It is something that their grandparents and great grandparents honored, and it is something that does not have a high price-tag or require a travel visa to be a part of. Makeshift is happening in every pocket of the globe, as the next generation rediscovers what the act of doing, undoing, and sharing is all about.” - Abigail Doan

“One Saturday afternoon in Florence, in one of our many conversations leading up to Makeshift, Natalie and I floated a simple 1-step experimental plan about how to ignite “making a shift”: If you want to make a shift, start making something!

The evening at The Standard was, for me at least, a beautiful lesson in how true this can be.

It’s mysterious: How is it that making things together–songs, beads, finger-knitting, stories–also creates a feeling of community?

Here’s another question: Once we’ve created this feeling of community, what do we want to do with its precious momentum?

During the week of Makeshift, I wove a seat for a chair (with a lot of patient help from Cathy Bailey and Andrew Wagner). I reverse appliqued a cover for a journal at the sewing circle, seated next to and across from both near and dear old friends and brand new ones. I met amazing people who will become friends and co-conspirators, and introduced old friends to one another. I was in the same room with Tift Merritt.

In the week following Makeshift, these experiences and encounters are continuing to grow and fructify. And I’m admiring my chair from a distance, recommending that everyone else who either lives in my house or visits it do the same. Unlike some of the splendid and sound creatures created at the Chair Workshop, mine is more or less a loosely and not very expertly woven potholder.

Now I’m curious: What do we want make together next?” – Jessamyn Hatcher

As part of MAKESHIFT, we collaborated on a pop-up shop with the Billy Reid team in their New York store. The shop was called ‘Crafting Fashion,’ and featured hand-crafted garments, hats, shoes, jewelry, and home décor from seasoned designers who pair fashion and craft beautifully.

We encourage you to join with crafters, makers, and artists to curate pop-up shops in your community. Find a space- or make a space, work towards creative collaboration, and share your vision with your community.

If you’ve already done so, we’d love to hear about it.

xoNatalie

We’d like to highlight each of the featured designers in our pop-up shop and say a special ‘thank you’ to everyone who took the time to ‘make’ and contribute to ‘Crafting Fashion’.

We can’t thank Billy Reid and his team enough for hosting our pop-up shop and opening event. Billy has his corporate offices near our studio @ The Factory, in the Billy Reid flagship store and studio here in downtown Florence, Alabama. He employs artisan factories in Europe and America in crafting his men’s, women’s, and accessories collections. Of course we were drawn to his quilted jackets.

Susan Cianciolo debuted her newest work at ‘Crafting Fashion’. As an artist and clothing designer, she continues to show regularly on the New York fashion calendar and maintains a strong base of private and retail clients.

Heath Ceramics displayed their new summer line, in addition to pieces from our recent collaboration. All pieces are hand-made at their factory in Sausalito, California. Catherine Bailey and her husband Robin Petravic purchased Heath Ceramics in 2003 and have built upon the work begun by Edith Heath.

Urchin necklaces from Hugo & Marie were juxtaposed against delicate plates. Hugo & Marie is an imaginative creative agency specializing in artist management founded in early 2008. They focus on direction, design, illustration, interactive, and representation services.

Imogene + Willie owners Carrie and Matt Eddmenson contributed oversized pillows made from antique Japanese denim. They have developed many modern day denim processes and finishes as well as products, fits, finishes, and branding for denim companies.

For the shop, Maria Moyer contributed pieces of her hand-formed porcelain jewelry. As a sculptor, Maria creates unglazed porcelain that she sands between firings to create a sea-shell-smooth finish.

The shop displayed handmade hats from Leigh Magar and Albertus Swanepoel. Leigh started Magar Hatworks almost 20 years ago in Charleston, South Carolina. She studied the classic hat making techniques at F.I.T.in Manhattan.

In 2006, Albertus formed his own company, Albertus Swanepoel LLC, which designs and produces handmade hats for a select number of stores in the US and internationally.

George Esquivel has spent the past 17 years designing and making shoes in California. For the past decade, he has operated Esquivel from a small manufacturing facility in Orange County, California.

Tucker by Gaby Basora was made in New York City, especially for the pop-up shop. Pieces included printed silk blouses and beautiful colorful skirts.

Kenlynn Wilson hand-produces each piece of knitwear for her line, ONE OF Collection, on non-mechanized knitting looms. We had the pleasure of having Kenlynn participate in our Sewing Workshop at the Standard East.

Alabama Chanin included both custom garments, home accessories, and pieces from our collection, including embroidered ponchos and our “Alabama Fur” coat.

We finished our week of MAKESHIFT with Crafting Design, a chair workshop hosted at Partners & Spade in New York City.

From the New York Times piece “Pull Up a Chair, Then Fix It” by Andrew Wagner:

“Last Saturday, as part of a conference called MakeShift, Natalie Chanin, the founder of the fashion label Alabama Chanin, held a workshop to rehabilitate some of these castoffs at Partners & Spade on Great Jones Street. The event, which she called Crafting Design, was dedicated to resurrecting the bent, twisted and broken remnants of what the poet David McFadden has described as ‘the most ubiquitous and important design element in the domestic environment’: the chair.”

Krrb provided found chairs for our day that were piled in front of the design studio. Guests picked through the random selection of chairs – ranging from your standard IKEA chair to retro, a leather chair, and a stool – then chose from mounds of fabric scraps, nails, stencils, and an assortment of tools to redesign them.

Among the “crafters” who attended were Tanya Aguiñiga, Cathy Bailey, Amy Devers, and Melanie Falick.

“Ms. Devers, a furniture designer and the star of “Fix This Yard” on A&E, was hammering nails into the seat and back of her old Ikea chair, piling T-shirt scraps on top and carefully threading them through the nail bedding, so that the material began to take on the appearance of a colorful shag rug. One lone, loose piece from the back was left to dangle gracefully to the ground.”

Saturday’s open collaboration in the design studio reinforced MakeShift’s conversation on design, craft, and DIY.

Check out “Pull Up a Chair, Then Fix It,” by Andrew Wagner for the New York Times.  And take some time this week to refurbish some of the furniture (stuff) in your own life. Or throw your own Crafting Design party.

Andrew Wagner’s knowledge of the Bloody Mary was especially helpful to the whole design process. We suggest the following recipe from page 88 of Alabama Studio Style for your own Crafting Design event:

ALABAMA’S BLOODY MARY
Serves 6-8

3 cups tomato juice (use juice leftover from canning tomatoes this summer if available – this makes all the difference in the world!)
1 cup vodka
4 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
6-8 dashes Tobasco sauce (or to taste)
Juice of 2 limes
Olives, pickled okra, or Tomolives (pickled green cherry tomatoes) for garnish

Stir all ingredients but the garnishes together in a serving pitcher, add ice, and serve.

Thanks to A.J. Mason and Jeff Moerchen for their help in rounding up tools, coordinating chaos, helping with design/build, and for bringing a general good spirit to the day.

We are planning a Crafting Design event for our studio in Alabama.
Start collecting chairs…
xoNatalie

After taking time to reflect on our recent week in New York for MAKESHIFT, I’m already thinking about MAKESHIFT 2013.

Here are some highlights from the conversation at The Standard Talks. We reported the MAKESHIFT events here on the blog throughout the week, and had great press coverage from the New York Times, Style.com, Page Six, and Jezebel. Here’s a recap of our memorable conversation.

From The Standard Talks panel discussion:

Andrew Wagner began with a grand introduction and also referenced Ettore Sottsass’s essay, ‘When I Was a Very Small Boy’.

AW: When we all got together to talk about this [MAKESHIFT], we decided to not call it a conference, even though I just did; we decided we were going to call it a carnival, because it is going to be a pretty weird evening in the best possible sense. It is going to take a lot of interesting twists and turns, but part of why I am here is to try and figure out and wrap up what we are doing here.

I would like to suggest that life is not about compartmentalization, it is about a myriad of experience and emotions that come together to form a vivid life. Our life is not about ‘what we do’, but how we experience the world.

Rosanne Cash opened the panel discussion by singing “Fair and Tender Ladies”, a song that would be crafted by the audience during the conversation. Read more about Rosanne’s participation in MAKESHIFT here.

Cathy Bailey of Heath Ceramics discussed the history of her company and Edith Heath, the founder. She then related her experience with design and making.

CB: At Heath, everything was under one roof. Nothing was outsourced. Everything that the company needed was done and produced there. That is what gave the space its energy and its hum. I think it was simple and it was pure. It didn’t seem backwards. It seemed pure to us and that was exciting.

Another draw to the company was that there was such focus. There was one material that was being focused on since 1947. I found that fascinating and totally inspiring. That is what Heath felt like in 2003 when we bought the company.

This photo (below) reflects back to the Sottsass’s essay that Andrew mentioned. Here is my son and I get to see in him something beautiful. He has ideas, and he gets such satisfaction and confidence in ideas coming out of his hands. There is so much incredible joy and confidence he gets from drawing and making something from clay.

Because we are in this place that is focused on one material – we design our own glazes. We design our own shapes and we put them out there in a larger level.

This is the transparency that you get with glazes over glazes. It is something that gets missed when the ‘designing’ and the ‘making’ get separated.

Natalie and I did a project together to honor the work she was doing. The plates are etched by hand and not that dissimilar from stitching fabric. This woman etches every plate – which mimics Natalie’s work.

The last part of this- back to Edith Heath who was so obsessed with clay – she was a never-ending fountain of new ideas and inspiration. At one point she decided that the space between the plates in the kiln was not being utilized. These spaces were being fired for free. She started using beads and buttons in between the spaces. We started to making them again. For this event we have made beads, and Natalie is going to teach you how to make something.

To follow, I showed the audience to make knotted necklaces and how to finger knit using yarn balls that Alabama Chanin made for the event. I shared thoughts on fashion, making, and design.

NC: Our company is all about making. Design is important, but design is not enough. We make fashion, but we also teach people how to ‘make’ fashion. No one in our studio can keep their hands still.

In your bag you will find balls of rope that have been tied and pulled together. I am going to teach you how to make something like this necklace. All you have to do is keep tying knots. The one I am wearing took about four hours to make. The knotting – everyone can do it – and I am also going to teach you finger knitting. You have a loop on the end of the rope and you pull your fingers through the loop and keep pulling loops and as you make a longer loop, you can go back the other way – this is called finger knitting. It is very similar to crochet, made exactly the same way as what you are doing.

Once, as I was growing my company, I was told by a very wise man that the surest way to success was to “stick to your knitting.”  His point was that if you area of expertise is to build buildings, you should, simply, build buildings. If you know how to sew, you should keep sewing.  If what you know best is knitting, you should simply stick to your knitting. I was given this piece of advice almost a decade ago and it has served me well.  When I am unsure about a business decision or what to do, I simply go back to my knitting.

 I hope you all enjoy your knitting tonight.

Then Maria Cornejo discussed how an empty space helped her turn making into fashion.

MC: I had a space and I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with it. I hated the fashion business, but I wanted to do something. I wanted to make something without any preconceived ideas. In the beginning, the space was a gallery, and I gradually started making things.

When combined, a circle and a triangle make a garment. We first placed a rack near the door of our gallery. If people responded to those garments, we made them the following week. We were always printing t-shirts. We’d get an order for 200, and we printed them all. A lot of t-shirts were all hand-painted and nothing was the same, but it was more about the idea of making something that was more immediate.

Jessamyn Hatcher spoke on “Worn Stories,” a project curated by Emily Spivack about the attachments that we form with our clothing – or things that we make and/or buy.  Her work with these stories, and the consequent Human-Textile Wellness Pop-Up Clinic, drills home the point that we have stories that become imbedded in our articles of clothing and that, rather than discard a piece, we can identify those connections and find ways – both emotional and physical to alter any piece for a new place in our lives.  In the end, Jessamyn asked the audience members to participate with the process by sharing one of their worn stories.

Read about Jessamyn’s contribution to the MAKESHIFT conversation here.

Rosanne Cash read her own personal worn stories, and then performed the “crafted” version of ‘Fair and Tender Ladies’. We fully recapped Rosanne’s performance here.

Andrew ended the evening by asking the audience to stay, introduce themselves, and to further the conversations on making. It seems that everyone took it to heart and did just that.

We hope everyone in attendance had a fantastic time, left inspired, will continue the conversations in their own communities, and then return next year to further the process.

Let us know what you think…

xoNatalie