It’s hard to believe, but we’ve been around for six years! When we first started, we had very humble beginnings. Amy and I built our business plans, held meetings, filmed local news pieces and manufactured jewelry in our apartments. It was not an uncommon occurrence for us to produce our Signature pendants while sitting at my dining room table watching Orange is the New Black. She frequently resined our pieces on her kitchen counter and ordered take-out for dinner...because her kitchen was our “resin room!”
After eight months of working out of our homes, we finally raised a bit of money and were able to hire a team and sign a lease working out of a building filled with fellow artists. Our first space was everything that you’d imagine a start-up’s home to be. It was cheap! Because it was cheap, it came equipped without heat...winters were brutal and we often wore our coats and gloves while working. Internet was spotty and caused us to take work home on the regular…more so than an entrepreneur in the start-up world would! It was on the third floor of a building without an elevator. Normally that wouldn’t be an issue, but for two girls (just barely making the 5 foot mark) and carrying heavy machinery and ten foot festival tents up three flights of stairs it was an issue! We’re tenacious though! At one point, I ordered two pre-made steel tables for our shop. I arranged for Amy to meet the delivery company at our shop and accept delivery. To her surprise, the delivery guy was a 70+ year old man by himself. Because she’s determined, she (in heels and a skirt) and the frail delivery man carried the steel tables up three flights of stairs together!
Since the early days we’ve been growing slowly and moving to spaces that better meet our needs. We’re now on our fourth space (fifth if you count our apartments)! We’re excited for where we’ve landed...and not just because we have heat and it’s on the first floor. We’re still waiting on reliable internet. Ahem...Comcast! We’re excited for our new space because it’s in a kickass neighborhood...New Center, Detroit. There’s so much development and activity in our neighborhood! Our new home is perfect for us...it’s the first time our shop has actually felt like home. Yes, even more so than our own homes in the early days. It’s the perfect combination of gritty and pretty...kind of like we think of ourselves. Within the existing four brick walls, we had an opportunity to design the layout. For a manufacturing facility, utilizing limited space to its fullest potential is incredibly important. We now have a dedicated “dirty room” to process our graffiti. We have a “resin room” to finish our pieces in the most perfect temperature controlled and clean room. We have an “inventory room” to sort our products and ensure that we’re keeping stocked at all times. Most importantly though, we have space to create our first retail storefront!
We hope to open the storefront sometime this Summer with our friends and new neighbors at York Project. York is another social enterprise, obviously based out of Detroit, creating ‘social streetwear’. Their merchandise is complementary to ours in every way and we couldn’t be more stoked to take on this joint venture with them!
If you’d like to stay in the know on our Grand Opening, sign up for our email blasts here.
Learn more about our friends York Project here.
We love for our friends to come visit us! If you want a tour of our new space, reach out to us here.