Roslyn Karamoko, Founder and CEO of Détroit is the New Black
“You can have any colour you want, so long as it’s black”. Once uttered by Henry Ford, this quote is now stamped on the sheeny storefront of
Détroit is the New Black, a fashion brand with its flagship on Woodward Avenue.
Inside the walls are whitewashed, the pipework exposed. T-shirts announcing ‘Détroit is the New Black’ hang from metal rails. I’m examining one when Roslyn Karamoko, the brand’s founder, clacks towards me. She’s up against it today, she says, but she’s time enough for a chat.
Time, I’m sure, is something Karamoko has precious little of. In between founding (in 2013) and running a successful clothing line, she’s busy championing local designers and makers. The result is the store-meets-gallery-meets-community space we’re in today. Her vision began with a single garment.
“I didn’t think there was a T-shirt that really incorporated the city’s history, but also its future,” Karamoko tells me, now perched on a stool behind the counter.
“Everyone can understand art: black, white, young, old. And people here are built to create – it’s in the bones of the city.”
The slogan’s acute ‘e’ denotes the city’s French heritage, she explains – Detroit was founded by French explorers in 1701. “Then ‘the new black’ means the new cool city.” She makes air quotes with her fingers.
“But there’s also a racial undertone and a conversation around gentrification: who is involved in this new Detroit?”
It’s a good question. The city is changing. But as Detroit rises, so too does the rent. And as its defunct factories become filled with craft-cocktail bars and restaurants serving small plates, where does that leave ‘original Detroit’ – a city of grit and graft – and those who inhabited it?
Karamoko shifts in her stool – it’s not an easy conversation to have, but it’s not one she shrinks from. As a Seattle native who’s held fashion jobs in Singapore and New York, she herself met pushback when she began a business here.
“But as people met me, they saw what I was attempting to build for the community – to bring original Detroit, original makers, downtown and to do it in a contemporary way.”
“This store is a bunch of small people trying to be big together. I hope Detroit can be that too.”
Alongside the T-shirt laden rails, there are sculptures, contemporary artworks, records for sale, jewellery in glass dressers by designers other than Karamoko.
“Everyone can understand art: black, white, young, old,” she says. “And people here are built to create – it’s in the bones of the city.”
“This store is a bunch of small people trying to be big together. I hope Detroit can be that too.”