Southern Culture in the Threads

January 5, 2016 6:47 AM

"For most of us, thread is something we think about only when it breaks — a lost shirt button, a ripped hem, a dangling end waiting to be trimmed. But for Natalie Chanin, thread is the tie that binds her to Southern textiles and to the relatives who worked at Florence’s Sweetwater Mill during the industry’s heyday." Kristi York Wooten writes about the history and resonances of Alabama Chanin, a "homegrown fashion line," for The Bitter Southerner.
posted by MonkeyToes (19 comments total)

This might be the best magazine on the internet.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 6:55 AM on January 5, 2016 [2 favorites]

As someone from Alabama, I tend to agree. I really need to add it to my rotation of sites that I monitor and consume more regularly.
posted by RolandOfEld at 7:07 AM on January 5, 2016

Opening with a scene from Muscle Shoals; okay, I'm in for the read.
posted by Sunburnt at 7:30 AM on January 5, 2016

Not to be nasty about this, I recall that a number of years ago I visited South Carolina, to spend time with my brother in law and his family. Went with my wife to a very small Civil War museum and had a chat with the elderly gent who was acting as docent and keeper of the place. He mentioned that so much of industry in his area, esp. textiles, moving to Mexico and wasn't that a shame.

I told him I could not be very sympathetic since many in his area of the country were delighted when textile firms moved from Maine to avoid unions and labor costs...Now, I noted, those firms moving further south for the same reasons.
posted by Postroad at 7:31 AM on January 5, 2016 [11 favorites]

What a beautiful and thorough article. This is just an amazing statement on its own, but most especially in an article about a fashion designer/line:

"In comparison to conflict diamonds, oil and other natural resources rife with political pain, cotton may be the damned heaviest....The reparations for cotton’s sins won’t come from media stunts, but from the unsung makers who risk their livelihoods to take cotton from seed to shelf with integrity."

Thank you so much for posting this, MonkeyToes.
posted by Sophie1 at 7:45 AM on January 5, 2016 [1 favorite]

Great article. I was curious and looked at her website since I had heard of it many times and never looked at it. The prices for pieces on the website are jaw-droppingly out of reach. I can sort of see those kinds of costs for something you would buy and use regularly and possibly even for generations, especially if it was unusually durable, but it's hard to imagine most of what is for sale on her website as staying in fashion or even surviving normal wear and tear. It's an interesting experiment, and I hope for the sake of her employees it can survive, but man, it looks like a tenuous business model.
posted by docpops at 7:46 AM on January 5, 2016 [2 favorites]

I didn't see the prices on alabamachanin.com as particularly "jaw-dropping" for women's clothing. And as the article states, they're:

an honest statement about the realities of our material world and the value of quality handiwork and sweatshop-free clothing manufacturing.

Glad you posted this MonkeyToes, thanks.
posted by travertina at 8:06 AM on January 5, 2016 [2 favorites]

an honest statement about the realities of our material world and the value of quality handiwork and sweatshop-free clothing manufacturing.

Sorry - I did not mean it to sound critical or judgemental. More an observation and lament that reflects a hopelessness that we can actually return certain manufacturing sectors to our shores. It's been so amazing to watch a resurgence of food, tools, utilitarian garments, etc all start coming out of small shops here in the NW, but actual clothing seems like more of a stretch.
posted by docpops at 8:22 AM on January 5, 2016

They're certainly jaw-droppingly out of reach for many people, myself definitely included. This stuff is high fashion, though, and there's a market for high fashion. Most of us aren't in that market, but it's definitely out there.

I don't know anyone who buys Alabama Chanin clothes, but I know several people who swear by the patterns in their book. If you like their stuff and can sew, that's another way to go.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 8:24 AM on January 5, 2016 [6 favorites]

Everything I hate about southern writing is encapsulated in this piece. I do not understand how a phrase like "reparations for cotton's sins" can be written so lightly, as though those sins were things in the past. I flinch at the cheap nostalgia for "home," that easy shorthand it's assumed we will all feel deeply about. I cannot bear the invocation of Athens and Asheville when we are talking about the history of cotton, as though we have somehow evolved past the destruction of our agriculture and the devastation of our manufacturing, as though their economies of "let's go smoke some pot and listen to music" can replace or repair the damage we are always doing outside their cultured enclaves.

It was this part that broke it for me: "we turn a blind eye to human rights violations, low wages, land stripping, toxic chemicals and other offenses of textile manufacturing that occur internationally and sometimes even on U.S. soil." It's that "sometimes" that did it. How can you live in the south, how can you write about the south, and say "sometimes"? Anywhere there's a river, anywhere there's a canal, there's a rotting red-brick mill, evidence of the past sin. When you smell the sharp tang of the defoliant sprayed on the cotton, that sick feeling in your nose is the evidence of the current sin. When you pass the ponds and lakes with their superfund signs and their no swimming signs and their no fishing signs, that's your evidence that we will never be done paying for this, no matter how many clothes for rich people we sew.

It's so cheap. I can't stand it. You shouldn't even be allowed to say "cotton" unless you're willing to write about life in the fields, in the mills, after the mills shut down. And now I'll spend the rest of the day feeling bad like I spit on everybody, like I spit on this lady's work, which I don't really mean to do, I don't begrudge her the work at all, it's just, can we please stop pretending we've crawled out from under history?
posted by mittens at 8:53 AM on January 5, 2016 [13 favorites]

Wow. As someone involved in fabrics and fashion with an early background in agriculture, I was totally expecting the prices to be double what they are given the setup.

This will give me some talking points and references for my classes over the next year.
posted by Tchad at 10:08 AM on January 5, 2016 [1 favorite]

I don't know anyone who buys Alabama Chanin clothes, but I know several people who swear by the patterns in their book.

My wife is a recent Alabama Chanin convert and she LOOOOOOOOOOVES the patterns. I was skeptical at first, because the finished products are so intricate and fancy looking, but everything she's made so far has turned out great. Plus she's making these really beautiful clothes from thrift store t-shirts.
posted by smartyboots at 10:21 AM on January 5, 2016 [2 favorites]

What struck me were the photos. They might be using specially sourced fabrics, but they are using lowest common denominator thread for the hand sewing (can't tell what the cones on the machines are). Coats polyester thread, made in Mexico. I do wish they would use something nicer, both to work with and end quality, and made by a US company like Superior Threads. It makes me sad, but I am a thread enthusiast who knows nothing about industrial garment making.

Also funny that when the women were photographed at a machine that you could really see, it is an American made industrial specialty machine. Or those were the chosen photos, anyway. But I doubt shots of them working at one of the newer looking Juki machines in the background wouldn't evoke the right emotions.
posted by monopas at 10:22 AM on January 5, 2016 [4 favorites]

I grew up in Lehigh Valley, PA 30-40 years ago. Many of my friends' moms were employed at local mills and clothing factories. Fast forward a few decades and those plants, and jobs, are all gone.

Also, my mom was an excellent seamstress and made a lot of my clothing as I was growing up. I have her old Singer cabinet sewing machine but my results have been catch as catch can.

I guess that makes me a slightly bitter Northerner. Great article and post.
posted by Sheydem-tants at 11:35 AM on January 5, 2016

Yay, Kristi York Wooten!
posted by staggering termagant at 4:49 PM on January 5, 2016

Mittens wrote: can we please stop pretending we've crawled out from under history?

Wow.
posted by Joe in Australia at 1:59 AM on January 6, 2016

There are indeed some nasty comments here, whose content was already addressed by TFA:

“Anytime you talk about cotton, it’s so rife with controversy, it doesn’t matter what you say. Any way you say it, you’re always the bad guy. There’s no way to heal a scar like that. You can’t. There’s no plastic surgery that’s going to make that scar go away … but I want to be a part of the solution if there is a solution.”

“Food, clothing and shelter are the things to sustain life. It’s kind of a case of national security that we can’t make our own clothes. We can’t make steel anymore? Does nobody else find that scary? At least the food people have taken that back, they’ve re-empowered the local community, and I hope we’re part of that same movement for material culture. We want to protect the land. And our craftsmen. If we don’t have craftspeople, if we don’t know that as part of our heritage, what happens to the culture [of textile work]?”

[I would kindly remind people to please make "the effort to just be explicit about the target and context" of your criticism.]

I grew up near Florence, in one of the tiny towns up 43 that lost all its factories. My family's advice for the future was, "get out." Sometimes I'm glad that I did, sometimes it makes me sad. I'm so impressed that Chanin started a successful business. Every little bit helps.
posted by heatvision at 4:30 AM on January 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'm very happy that this business has thrived, but when I read this article all I saw was a very well written and too long advertisement. I didn't think it was really up to The Bitter Southerner's usually high standards. Based on this post and the rest of my social media feed, I am in the minority with this opinion.

[I would kindly remind people to please make "the effort to just be explicit about the target and context" of your criticism.]

The closest thing to a "nasty comment" I see is mittens here above, and I would say this is pretty explicitly about the target and context of this article: " When you pass the ponds and lakes with their superfund signs and their no swimming signs and their no fishing signs, that's your evidence that we will never be done paying for this, no matter how many clothes for rich people we sew. "

I live in Alabama, and my wife is from another former textile mill area in another part of the south. They too have a couple of little boutique firms making charming pieces and an at-least-until-the-tax-abatement-runs-out-in-15-years car manufacturing plant. It's still just barely better than nothing, and nothing is basically what was left when the mills found a way to run further south both geographically and in labor costs. $100 pairs of leggings like Alabama Chanin or cute purses and bags like the shop from my wife's home town are not going to drive the kind of mass demand that makes a difference economically to these burned out old company towns.

It's the same reason why I'm suspicious of the phrase "slow food"--slow food and boutique manufacturing won't support the masses who are more concerned with paying their bills. Slow food isn't going to feed the average resident of Alabama, and Alabama Chanin isn't going to be clothing the average resident of Alabama.
posted by ndfine at 8:04 AM on January 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

Yeah, count me in with the people who basically like Alabama Chanin and found the article a little misty-eyed and sentimental and annoying. I also would like some more concrete discussion of the racial dynamics of the company. They say that they're going to do an oral history of textiles in the area to help reach underrepresented segments of the population and cultivate a diverse workplace. That's great, but what more-immediate steps are they taking to remedy the racial disparities in their workforce?
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 8:47 AM on January 6, 2016 [1 favorite]