What the hell! There’s nearly a dozen people in here. I’d of thought 5 people could get 10 garments photographed. But it’s November and 20 degrees, the beginning of Detroit’s hungry months and the wind is whipping down a people-less Michigan Avenue. What creative wouldn’t want to be a part of this happening? I hug the wall where I won’t get stepped on or knock equipment over. There’s a stylist working some camera on a sliding tripod thing, a videographer capturing everyone’s move, an assistant to the photographer’s assistant, the make-up artist, my old friends Kim the designer, Christine the dressmaker and Steve the photographer all climbing over each other in the converted third floor studio in his 100+ year-old, Corktown home. Everyone is dressed in black looking very New York. I got a kid’s red coat and hunting cap on, it’s Detroit right here.

Christine is fussing over a tiny wrinkle right now, three people are studying this offense on a monitor. I’m gonna last an hour. Flash back: 20 years ago and the last time I was in the same room with Steve and Christine. Damn we’ve been friends awhile. More significantly, we’ve all been self-employed creatives in Detroit longer than that. Is it really tougher in New York? I don't think so. We should get medals. I’m gonna hand one to my ownself for “networking superstar.” I’m like a grandma, all proud of bringing my people together. Loyalty is a powerful currency, don’t under value it.

The clothes are glorious, effortless, but getting them there sure wasn’t. Kim wins the “Big Cajones” award for going the two-year distance for this moment. I spent a whole weekend in that dress they’re still shooting, never looked or felt better in a garment.  Christine has the hand-sewn neck seam spot on. Seam? who cares? Listen if your collarbone suddenly looked like a million dollars, you’d care. Let’s face it the rest of us would be checking ourselves in if we had to make such a seam. Of course she gets the “10,000 hour Master,” prize. I say charge it and slide the thing over your head already. If you’re lucky you might get one with a perfectly placed “1817” maker’s stitch, priceless. That earnest reverence for the uniqueness of each and every piece made treasure hunting with Kim a fabulous adventure. What fun to be with her in some middle-of-no-where country barn plowing through luscious piles of antique linens! My kind of job!!

I think about the “renaissances” this group of Detroiters has endured, not oh-so fabulous adventures. O.K. so Steve is actually a New Yorker but he arrived 15 years ago…and stayed, he's as Detroit as it gets. Winner of the “tenacious reinventor,” Steve’s gone way out on a “wide angle” so-to-speak to create a really cool business and lifestyle in his profession. If you want longevity here, you are creatively thinking your every paycheck. Look we “old-timers” are not gonna jump up and down every time some suburbanite buys a building or a punk pops up with their Brooklyn idea, but cautiously speaking things are good now in Detroit, very good. We have prospects and projects and joy. 

I look out the studio window before I go. That barren vista is where Tiger stadium used to be; as fallow as a Provencal field of flax in winter. Ok so not everyone is enjoying prospects, but if one woman can bring this many people to work today then? …right?  You got to believe in the power and spirit of human labor, season after season, year after tough and trying year. People do survive and thrive, for that matter, fabric and garments made of nothing but grass withstand and become magnificent. Kim swears she can feel 200-year old energy in those humble old sheets. Now that’s glory and glamour.