Detroit’s young designers shine at New York Fashion Week

Detroit may be home to music royalty, producing legends like Diana Ross, Smokey Robinson, Big Sean and more, but its greatness goes beyond music. Creative professionals climbing those same standards are the emerging fashion designers who traveled to New York Fashion Week last month. While the designers have the same talent and ingenuity as veterans in the industry, they are young. As part of a collaboration between New York-based retailer Maison Black and the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Fashion Industry Club of Southeast Michigan (BGCSM), the youth designs were showcased at the Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy (LVMH) offices during Celebrity Week. Detroit native Tori Nichel, Mason Black’s founder and chief creative officer, hopes this experience will continue to inspire them.

Someone bet me when I was sixteen and she taught me fashion design and I studied with her until I was a junior in college, but I had never been to New York, and I never went. If I hadn’t been accepted to the Fashion Institute of Technology, I think I would have ended up in New York. So I am truly humbled and honored to be a part of this. And really, I hope this continues to inspire them to grow their careers, work hard at it, and get back out there.

Sean H. Wilson, president and CEO of BGCSM, feels this partnership is part of an opportunity for the organization to reinvent itself and provide untapped opportunities to Detroit students.

“The Fashion Industry Club represents our process of re-imagining ourselves. A few years ago, we wanted to re-imagine ourselves for greater social impact. That said, we know that at the root of the challenges facing the communities we serve is a lack of capital, financial capital, social capital and human capital. And that’s our youth. And our communities really prevent them from climbing that ladder of economic activity, really reaching the pinnacle of success. And we’ve designed our programs to provide career and entrepreneurial opportunities for the youth that we serve. And when you look at something like the Fashion Industry Club, it provides them all. It gives them economic capital, social capital, human capital. Capital is raised by their advisors.

Carlos Pearson is the creative genius behind the clothing brand Beautiful, One of the biggest takeaways from the experience was just being yourself while showing confidence, something he had struggled with in the past.

“I would say that just being myself and putting myself out there with confidence were important lessons. In social situations, when I’m with people, I get nervous sometimes, and I don’t really get my point across. But when I was there, it felt like a brotherhood. Everyone was there for me, and I felt like they were my brothers, and I could talk to them about anything. If I can do this with them and they’re successful, it makes me feel like I can do it in my classroom, even if I don’t know anyone else.

Whose brand name is Langston Howard High He was featured on the show, and the value of networking he developed during his heyday remains with him to this day.

“The most important thing I learned when I was in New York was that you have to use your connections to my advantage because we were making a lot of connections all day long. We were doing our best to make a lot of connections everywhere we went. And now, back home in Michigan, I have to use those connections to my advantage. From all of this in the industry I have connections with successful people, and I can use them to help me.

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