It's bikini season right now, but come autumn, all eyes move to the runway. Certainly the well-trod New York-Paris-Milan-London circuit comes to mind, but, closer to home, Detroit Fashion Week anchors the region's evolving fashion design trade.
"[Detroit] Fashion Week was established basically to help to launch the careers of local designers, to bring some credibility and some notoriety to Michigan's fashion industry," says Brian Heath, founder and producer of the state's only such industry event. Now in its sixth year, it will be held at the Royal Oak Farmers' Market from Sept. 19-25.
"Detroit Fashion Week is different from New York in that we've taken the position of not only doing an industry event, but also educating the local design community as to what the industry expects outside of Michigan." Heath sees this as a way to better educate local designers about the industry's seasonal buying calendar. While it's now an established show whose designers have attracted coverage from the likes of CNN Money and Women's Wear Daily, the event has been quick to welcome new apparel and accessories designers.
Fashion Week typically features 12-15 designers and 8-12 fashion students. Couturiers like Katerina Bocci have appeared. "[Bocci is] the most well-established designer in Michigan. She's a huge supporter of Detroit Fashion Week," Heath says.
He then points to Ferndale-based Fotoula Lambros and Emily Thornhill, who have also taken part in the event. The co-founders of Femilia Couture are known for their organic line and have been featured in Women's Wear Daily, the industry bible.
Detroit Fashion Week may lack international buyers, so you won't see major names like Dior there, Heath says, but out-of-town designers do take part. Among them are New York's Gretta Wallace, of the Simply Gretta line; Carmelita Martell, whose pieces have been shown at museums; Rani, creator of the St. Pucchi bridal line; and Tanya Seals, an Atlanta fur designer who just showed at the Cannes Film Festival.
Glamdex
Among the designers to see at Detroit Fashion Week this September will be Angela McBride, owner and creator of Peace, Love, and Spandex. Her colorific active performance wear and unisex spandex clothing is definitely kicky; a mesh top flaunts a draped neckline with a saucy green bow; turquoise pants sport bright patchwork stamps on the rear-end. "The aesthetic of things I just take from natural everyday wear, but definitely weird, old, like, '60s and '70s pictures, and stuff like that," McBride, a 2006 graduate of the International Academy of Design and Technology, explains.
McBride's seen many facets of the fashion industry, having worked as a stylist on Eminem's "3 A.M." and "Beautiful" videos, and on the artist's photo shoots for hip-hop magazine RESPECT and The Recovery album cover. She's also taught art and done costuming for Detroit Country Day School theater productions. "I definitely dabble in a lot of different directions because I am a struggling artist and I'm trying to succeed and eventually make money, ...and get my name out there," she explains.
McBride makes all of her garments either in her home studio or at Detroit's Motor City Sewing, a small-production studio co-founded by fellow designer Sarah Lapinski, who also owns the WOUND Menswear label. More places like Motor City Sewing need to take root in the area, she feels. "There aren't really any production houses or studios producing their whole manufacturing [run] of garments. That's what I think is intriguing and what I think is going to take off even more in the next few years, is not just being able to buy locally from Detroit, but even sew locally in Detroit," she theorizes. "We have the space here, we have the talent, people need the jobs. We have such a craving for fashion now, I mean, why wouldn't we want things made here?"
To accomplish this, the region needs to offer more basics – quality, reasonably priced fabric stores, for one, says McBride. She orders her materials online.
Meanwhile, the residents of other cities, such as Los Angeles, see fashion as more than just faddish. The L.A. Fashion District was established as the city's first business improvement district; it receives about $3 million annually from local property owners whose tenants range from apparel and accessory purveyors to textile manufacturers to live/work spaces. Over 200 fabric houses reside there.
McBride calls for input from other industry insiders as to how to form a full-circle garment trade involving everyone from buyers to sewers to pattern makers. "It takes more than just a few broke designers to figure it out, I think, to change Detroit as a whole."
Having a ball with Bocci
Katerina Bocci is proof positive that despite these hurdles, it's indeed possible to make it as a Detroit fashion figure. A tailor's daughter, the native of Albania studied fashion design at the SITAM school in Padova, Italy. She emigrated to Michigan in 2001 and after a stint at a bridal salon, cultivated a private clientele. In 2007 she converted a Shelby Township building into a studio with a workshop in the back where all of the garments are made. Her collections have taken the runway at Detroit Fashion Week and New York Couture Fashion Week in 2007 and in 2008.
While showing her lively hued 2009 evening wear line in New York, Bocci recounts, "I said... 'The state where I come from, we have seen enough of the bad economic timing and we want to have some more joyful things coming from Detroit', and I said 'I'm going to call it 'Rainbow'. The inspiration came from the first book of the Bible where Noah sees the rainbow in the sky again and he says 'God still hasn't forgotten about us'. So I put kind of a Biblical connection to them. That was my inspiration for that collection."
Celebrities like her trend. Dearborn's Rima Fakih wore a salmon pink Bocci gown the night she was crowned Miss USA; Aretha Franklin is adorned in rich red on the cover of her this Christmas CD. So goes the star power: Fergie, Jordin Sparks, Miss Universe 2006. Local news figures Rhonda Walker, Lila Lazarus, and Karen Drew all sport her creations. Last year she dressed Esther Gordy and other members of the Berry Gordy clan for the 50th anniversary of Motown. "And that's it!" she toots. "Just always in go-go-go!"
She won't be at this year's Couture Fashion Week, as the focus is more on the bridal spectrum of late. The Katerina Bocci 2011 bridal collection debuts this October at New York's Bridal Fashion Week, where such vaunted names as Monique Lhuillier and Anne Barge take to the runway.
"It's the real deal of the bridal industry," Bocci says. "Everybody shows in that show." She received New Designer Of The Year honors at last year's event and, along with Vera Wang and Oscar de la Renta, was chosen to interview with Women's Wear Daily.
Bridal collection pricing starts at $2,400 and goes up to $30,000, while evening wear ranges from $800 to $4,000 or $5,000. At these price points, Bocci doesn't work from size charts; everything is either custom-made, or clients can order made-to-measure garments from her collections. Also in progress is a made-to-measure option for brides from across the country and Canada. A team of 3-7 seamstresses uses a dozen sewing machines to assemble garments from expensive natural fabrics such as silk, laces, chantillies, silk tulle, and silk organza sourced from France, Italy, and India.
Bocci is well aware of the pluses and minuses of running a couture business in Michigan as opposed to one of the fashion capitals. She's turned down opportunities to move away, preferring to root her company and raise her three daughters in metro Detroit. She points to the area's lower costs of doing business, and the considerable local support. The flip side, though, is finding that depth of talent. "It's very hard to find the right seamstresses, it's very hard to find people that have so much knowledge when it comes to the industry of fashion. I'm talking about wholesale fashion, not retail."
"The positive thing is that we have to try," she adds. "Because here is the question that I get when I go out of state, especially when I am in New York: 'Where is your business located?' I say 'Michigan' and they look at me with kind of a weird face. 'Mi-i-chigan??' she recounts, drawing the words out. 'What are you do-o-ing in there?' I get this all the time and to me it is frustration because I say, 'What's wrong?' We are able to make beautiful cars, I tell them, so why aren't we able to make fashion?"
Designers have their work cut out for them
Educationally, there are now more choices for local fashion design and merchandising programs than ever – count among them Central Michigan, Michigan State, Eastern Michigan, Wayne State, IADT, and the Art Institute of Michigan. Lawrence Technological University may also launch a fashion design program, according to Heath, who wrote a curriculum and taught courses there last year.
Training opportunities are promising, yes, but Heath feels the area lags behind in its ability to distribute local designers' work nationwide. "It's a shame that we don't have an established community of retail outlets and buyers locally that these students can intern for." He notes the lack of any concentration of designers with salons in-state. "Every designer you talk to, every school you talk to... the biggest thing that we don't have is a fashion district in Michigan. Ladies will get on the buses and they'll drive to Chicago or New York to do their shopping in the fashion districts."
Eastern Market, with the space to house designer showrooms, garment factories, and ample foot traffic from locals and visitors alike to support the retail end, would be a prime location, he feels. "Especially for a city like Detroit, if we could establish a fashion district, considering there's no mall, still, in the city of Detroit after 50 years, that's absolutely amazing."
And here is where metro Detroit's attempt to make a fashion statement turns into a problem statement: Fashion is a multi-billion dollar market, Heath says, but Michigan doesn't fully take advantage of its business and retail side. Thus, up-and-coming designers who study and seed their careers here often relocate.
"The biggest problem we have is we keep losing our established designers like the Tracy Reeses and the Anna Suis who established themselves and literally move and have no presence here in Michigan," he asserts. "We literally have to give them a place to work and grow and make a living. That's the problem we have. Designers need a home."
Tanya Muzumdar's fashion sense is all her own. She is a freelance writer and the assistant editor for Metromode and Concentrate. Her previous article was Bewitched By Bats.
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All Photos by Dave Lewinski
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