The New York Times - 12.09.2019

THE NEW YORK TIMES, THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2019 N D3

DETROIT — If you come from a place that has
exported its tastes in design, architecture,
fashion and music to a welcoming audience
for well over a century; a place steeped in
art made of broken glass and low-slung
homes with triple-thick brick walls; a place
where the bottom fell out in a dizzying way,
but where retailers and hoteliers and col-
lege students and everyday workers are
walking the comeback trail together, you
have a healthy respect for adversity and for
problem solving.
You know that setbacks can arrive at any
time, no matter how bright your current
shine may be. They may knock you down
for a bit, sure. But you can get back up.
Tracy Reese is such a person. And that
place is Detroit.
Ms. Reese, 55, a Parsons-educated de-
signer with three decades of experience in
the New York fashion scene, has dressed ce-
lebrities, including Taylor Swift, Sarah Jes-
sica Parker and Tracee Ellis Ross.
But she is probably best known for creat-
ing the sleeveless pink jacquard dress that
Michelle Obama, when she was the first

lady, wore to the Democratic National Con-
vention in 2012 — and for being one of the
very few African-American female design-
ers atop her own brand.
That brand dissolved last year, after a 20-
year run. This spring Ms. Reese unveiled
Hope for Flowers, a sustainable clothing
line based in Detroit, where she was born.
Followers of her work will recognize the
bright colors, the generous lines, the flow
that seemingly keeps flowing even when
the body is still.
But they may not know it is also an an-
swer to two questions that had nagged Ms.
Reese for years: How can you slow it down
and be profitable? And how could she in-
volve Detroit?

The Long Way Home

After Parsons, Ms. Reese went through the
rise and fall of her first house, a stint at
Perry Ellis and the restart of her Tracy
Reese label in 1996, in New York’s garment
district. She took on an investor, Om-
prakash Batheja, and the business peaked
in 2013, when it sold $23 million in wholesale
goods. But as the fashion calendar became
more demanding, requiring “stuff and more
stuff,” she said, she started to wonder.
“Why do we need all of that?” Ms. Reese
asked.
By 2018, the business was contracting. To
spur sales, Ms. Reese said, her investor sug-
gested that she go down-market. She dis-
agreed, and the business continued to spiral
downward. They are now in court to dis-
solve their partnership and determine who
will own the Tracy Reese name.
Ms. Reese, pivoting, is already in a differ-
ent place.
Her new line is priced from $250 to $425
and incorporates “organic cotton, organic
linen and also Tencel,” said Ms. Reese, using
the brand name for lyocell, a fabric made

from wood pulp gathered from sustainable

tree farms. Her sense of color and flow is ap-

parent at her work space, on the second

floor of a gritty block of former warehouses.

On the inside, it’s all reclaimed wood, loft-

like ceilings and windows that take up an

entire wall, decorated with bright orange

pillows and a floral quilt draped over a set-

tee. Several pieces from the new line hang

from a rack along the wall.

“Some people need the purity and peace

of white spaces, but that’s never inspired

me,” Ms. Reese said.

This year, she started devoting more time

to a house she bought in 2017 in the Mid-

town section of Detroit. Many of her family

members live in the city, including a sister

and several cousins.

She and her siblings were raised with a

healthy amount of civic pride. Her mother

insisted that the family spend its money

within the city whenever possible. Now that

Detroit is pushing ahead post-bankruptcy,

Ms. Reese said she had been heartened by

all of the entrepreneurs, artists and activ-

ists taking a stake in the city. She decided,

“This all can’t be happening without me.”

Made in Motown

Ms. Reese has formed a partnership with

Détroit Is the New Black, a label founded by

Roslyn Karamoko that now showcases

Hope for Flowers pieces and other design-

ers at its anchor store on Woodward Ave-

nue, Detroit’s main thoroughfare. She found

a screen printer in Detroit to dye her fabrics

for the Hope for Flowers collection, and she

got the sewing center at St. Luke New Life

Center in Flint, Mich., to stitch the pieces.

Ms. Reese first worked with St. Luke on

an exhibit called “Flint Fit,” an installation

for which the artist Mel Chin went to Flint

during the water crisis, collected over

90,000 empty water bottles and had them

recycled into thread and fabric.

Mr. Chin then asked Ms. Reese to design

pieces for the fabric; she created a rainwear

and swimwear line that was sewn at St.

Luke. Those pieces were a part of Mr. Chin’s

exhibit “All Over the Place” at the Queens

Museum in New York in 2018.

A proud product of the Detroit public

school system — she graduated from Cass

Technical High School in 1981 — Ms. Reese

has taught a few design workshops at a pub-

lic elementary school and is lobbying to

bring arts classes back to the curriculums.

She is also a board member at the Indus-

trial Sewing and Innovation Center, or

I.S.A.I.C., a nonprofit Detroit-based insti-

tute planning to open a for-profit industrial

sewing and manufacturing center late this

year, on the third floor of the Carhartt flag-

ship store in the city.

The space, which was a dusty defunct

parking lot this summer, will gain walls and

three huge skylights, providing natural

light for the workers. I.S.A.I.C. plans to start

with about two dozen people, training them

in sewing, robotics, production, engineer-

ing and automation.

“She sees Detroit as a place to demon-

strate how industry could and should oper-

ate,” said Jennifer Guarino, the chair-

woman of I.S.A.I.C. and the vice president

for manufacturing at Shinola, another De-

troit-based business that has infused the

city with a renewed fashion sense. “One

that is diverse, inclusive and offers equity in

growth for longtime Detroiters.”

Ms. Reese is also a backer of Merit Good-

ness, a project that teaches high school stu-

dents fashion design, production, market-

ing, public relations and fund-raising.

A Sustainable Future

Ms. Reese said she hoped the institute’s

sewing project would act as both a model of

a new kind of factory and an inspiration for

other producers who might come to the city.

She takes a similar view of Merit Goodness,

the sewing circle at St. Luke’s, Détroit Is the

New Black and other businesses such as

Detroit Denim (whose co-owner Brenna

Lane is also an I.S.A.I.C. board member),

which she hopes will inspire more responsi-

ble consumption.

In June, Ms. Reese was a finalist in the

CFDA/Lexus Fashion Initiative, a program

that provides business support to help

brands with responsible strategies. Accord-

ing to Steven Kolb, the chief executive of the

CFDA: “What struck me in watching her go

through the program was the emotion she

had connected to her efforts, sometimes

even with tears in her eyes. You could genu-

inely see it wasn’t just marketing.”

Ms. Reese splits her time between Detroit

and New York, and she will be showing her

Hope for Flowers collection this fall to sev-

eral wholesale accounts for spring 2020.

Thus far she sells to consumers via two

stores — Anthropologie and Détroit Is the

New Black — which is just fine with her.

“My strategy is to go low and slow, to be

very intentional about my footprint,” she

said. “I always wanted to make beautiful

clothes. Now I want to do it the right way.”

PHOTOGRAPHS BY BRITTANY GREESON FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Top, Tracy Reese, right, with

the model Rockie Bonds, both

wearing dresses from Ms.

Reese’s new line, Hope for

Flowers, in Detroit. Her studio,

above, is on an industrial block

of former warehouses, upper

left, but her collection sells in

downtown Detroit, upper right.

Rising Again, This Time With Her City

The designer Tracy Reese

unveils a clothing line based

in Detroit, her hometown.

By STACY Y. CHINA

The Fur Salon

THE NEW COLLECTIONS HAVE ARRIVED

FALL

OPULENCE

OSCAR DE LA RENTA

Bleached mink coat with crystal embroidery. Fur origin: USA.