The Willson Center and the Athens Fashion Collective will present a weekend of sustainable fashion events Jan. 28-30, featuring Natalie Chanin, founder and designer of Alabama Chanin, and Georgia Sewn, a one-day expo of the regional fashion design industry.
Chanin is an internationally recognized leader in the sustainable fashion movement. Based in Florence, Alabama, Chanin’s garments and other goods are produced with organic cotton along with repurposed and reclaimed materials.
Chanin will be 2016’s first guest in the Willson Center’s Global Georgia Initiative, a speaker series that presents global problems in local context with a focus on how the arts and humanities can intervene.
The weekend’s events begin Jan. 28 with a 2 p.m. sewing workshop led by Chanin in the first-floor atrium of the Lamar Dodd School of Art. At 7:30 p.m., Community will present a screening of the film Cotton Road at Cine in downtown Athens.
Chanin will give her Global Georgia talk at 5 p.m. Jan. 29 in the Chapel. Athens photographer Rinne Allen, who has documented Alabama Chanin’s process and products for publications including The New York Times and, most recently, Bitter Southerner, will introduce Chanin.