This Ain’t No Sweatshop
Motor City Sewing brings clothing production
back to the heartland.
by Rebecca Mazzei Photos Dave Krieger
The Russell Industrial Center, a behemoth manufacturing plant that abuts a busy
Detroit expressway, is not the kind of place where you’d expect to see two blondes
hurrying along in kitten heels. But, much to the amusement of workmen toiling
on loading docks in the morning sun, Sarah Lurtz and Sarah Lapinski are hop-
scotching across the parking lot, headed to their studio on the third floor. ¶ “The
two Sarahs,” as they’re known around town, are cofounders of the upstart Motor
City Sewing (MCS), one of the Midwest’s only boutique-sized factories. On the
day I visit, the duo is preparing for the May launch of Wound, their spring line
of menswear that offers a playful, preppy take on the urban dandy. After a few
failed attempts at outsourcing their designs to factories in Los Angeles, Lurtz and
Lapinski set up their own Detroit operation in January, 2007. “It was the only way
we were going to get Wound going,” Lurtz says. “But we found a need for [a work-
shop] here, with talented designers who occasionally want to place smaller or-
ders.” ¶ MCS currently serves about a dozen small labels, and calls for orders are
coming in steadily. With their manufacturing business under way, MCS’s found-
ers are now ready to tackle retail, and they intend to learn it the only way they
know how, by doing everything themselves (the pair once staged a fashion show
on the People Mover, Detroit’s mass transit line). ¶ “Even if we had $200,000,
we wouldn’t know what to do with it,” quips Lurtz, 25, who previously served as
director at local clothier Pure Detroit Design Lab. Lapinski, 29, who founded the
now-defunct art gallery Girlie Collective, nods in agreement: “I consider this like
grad school,” she says. So what it’s like to run a small fashion empire? We asked
the Sarahs to let us tag along on a typical day.
quer. Lurtz dashes off to check out a potential
party site—a 10,000-square-foot warehouse
that once belonged to the Detroit Fire Depart-
ment, while Lapinski delivers a payment to a
sewing machine dealer.
2: 35 Back at the factory, Lapinski stops
to chat with workers at Highway Press, a
screen-printing concern headquartered on the
second floor. With its low rent and wide-open
workspaces, the Russell Industrial Center has
become a hive of local creativity, playing host to
musicians, photographers, woodworkers, metal-
smiths, gallery owners, and recording engineers.
The Sarahs scored their spot for $550 per month.
3: 26 Time to close up shop for the day. “Since
we’re small, for now, we can let our employees’
lives dictate the work hours,” Lapinski says.
6:04 The ladies reconnect and carpool to an
evening meeting with Six Degrees, a pocket-
sized fashion and entertainment magazine
that’s handling the lighting and DJs for
Wound’s launch party.
10: 37 a.m. Lurtz and Lapinski arrive at the
drafty 800-square-foot studio, and Lapinski
sweeps stray threads from the concrete floor.
When they set up shop, the pair outfitted the
raw space with hanging plugs and lights and
painted the drab cinder-block walls in warm
shades like lemon yellow and cranberry. Factory
manager Julian Paul, a tailor from Trinidad
who’s logged 30 years in the business, returns
with an accelerator for the foot pedal of an old
Singer machine he’s had welded by a metal-
worker from a studio downstairs. MCS boasts
some heavy-duty equipment, including a steam
table, buttonhole machine, and fabric cutter.
To save money, the company purchased 13 used
sewing machines and made some of their own
equipment. Paul hand-built a six-foot-long fabric
spreader and roller using an old bench press.
10: 56 Cleveland-based designer Sean Bil-
ovecky arrives with a roll of extra black denim
under his arm. The ladies are producing a por-
tion of Bilovecky’s minimalist, industrial-chic
menswear line, Wrath Arcane.
11: 35 As Phil Collins croons on the radio,
Lapinski videotapes work in progress to post on
an online news site. She zooms in on Bilovecky
attaching fabric swatches to his cut tickets, then
sets down the camera to call a couple of errant
clients: “I’m also a bill collector now,” she says.
Two other part-time employees—seam-
stresses in training—hunch over the humming
machines. They are producing Wound’s
button-down shirts made from Japanese
cotton. To keep up with demand, Lurtz and
Lapinski plan on hiring two more full-time
employees and several interns.
12:03 p.m. Sharing split pea and okra frit-
ters at Slows Bar BQ, the MCS duo plans the
Wound launch party. Part of the evening will
be dedicated to a panel discussion on rebuilding
Detroit, where signs of regeneration and entre-
preneurial activity are rife—especially here in
Corktown, the city’s oldest neighborhood.
1: 24 Lapinski and Lurtz (who’ve affection-
ately dubbed each other “label”) divide and con-
8: 51 In Greektown, the girls stop for a follow-
up drink with Wes Wyatt, a Philadelphia-based
interiors contractor. Wyatt recently purchased
a penthouse in Detroit’s Book-Cadillac Hotel,
a majestic building that’s undergoing a major
renovation. With one nod of the head, he agrees
to invest $10,000 for the launch party and run-
way show. “This city has been so broke down,
yet people try so hard,” Wyatt says. “I love what
these girls are doing.”
10: 49 The threesome rush across the street
to Pegasus restaurant, where Lapinski wait-
resses, for a quick bite to eat. Both Lurtz and
Lapinski work weekends and double shifts as
waitresses to supplement their incomes.
11: 54 Arriving home, Lurtz cooks for the next
day before crashing, while Lapinski hopes to
spend time with her husband before doing the
same. “Believe me, not every day is like this,”
Lurtz says. “Although … tomorrow does seem
pretty busy, now that I think about it.”
ReadyMade 63
