On The Town: John Varvatos Pays Tribute to Detroit Rock ‘n’ Roll at Store Opening

The John Varvatos store opening - hosted by the Chrysler Brand, and in partnership with Dan Gilbert and Bedrock Real Estate Services - welcomed over 600 guests for a rock show that celebrated fashion, music, but most importantly, Detroit. The star-studded black carpet was filled with celebrities from Detroit including Alice Cooper, Justin Verlander, Kate Upton, Michael Bolton and Nicole Curtis, amongst many others.

Before Alice Cooper took the stage, John Varvatos welcomed the crowd. “For me, this is more than a store opening celebration,” said Varvatos. “It’s a kickoff celebration of things to come to the city of Detroit. The future is bright and it’s just the beginning!” 

We're going to have to agree with that, John. Alright, alright – less talking, more viewing. Pictures from the night, courtesy of John Varvatos, are below.

On The Town: Ribbon Cutting Ceremony at The Runway Fashion Incubator in Lansing

Yesterday was a perfect fall day for a road trip to Lansing for the ribbon cutting ceremony of The Runway Lansing, a fashion incubator and retail space located in a portion of The Knapps building, which had been the site of the iconic Knapps department store.

The major partners behind the first fashion incubator in Michigan are LEAP, City of Lansing, Lansing Economic Development Corp., Eyde Company and Downtown Lansing, INC, with consultant Jeff Henry as the driving force behind the project.

The space includes a first-floor retail area, showcasing the products from the designers of the incubator, along with other Michigan-area designers. The second floor is for the designers in residence and associate designers. The designers in residence are equipped with their own office space, and along with the associate designers, they have access to all of the industrial sewing machines, two computers, a digitizer, Gerber cutter and state-of-the-art software. Manufacturing consulting, marketing consulting and business consulting is offered to the designers in residence while the associate designers have discounted access to the consulting. Overall, the Runway Lansing is a great example of people getting together to help push Michigan’s fashion industry in a positive and exciting direction.

For more information, visit www.runwaylansing.com or if you’re in the neighborhood, stop by and shop their retail showroom in a couple of weeks when it opens! Runway Lansing is located at 300 S. Washingtown Square in Lansing. 

On The Town: West Elm Opens in Birmingham

Launched in 2002 out of Brooklyn, NY, West Elm’s mission is to help customers express their personal style at home, and boy, did that come across when walking through the doors this morning. The store is beautiful and is set up with public living spaces in the front (living and dining rooms) and bed and bath towards the back. The furniture and home décor is like something out of your dreams and it seems like every item in the store can be styled with other items in the store even it they aren’t from the same section.

The color palette is mostly cool tones from greys to muted blues with pops of white, metallic and fur to warm up everything. One thing they do very well with their staging is mixing metals and metallics, which is a great home décor (and even fashion) trend, and will work especially well for holiday decorating. Overall, the brand is rather affordable, and the little home décor items scattered around the store would make for great gifts, holiday or otherwise.

One great thing about West Elm is that they have a service called “Home Stylist” that is free of charge. The stylist will help you with design ideas, recommend other great stores for certain furniture or décor items they don’t carry, and even come to your house (free of charge, again) to look at your space and set up a floor plan for you to use when decorating.

For those of you who love to shop local, you’re in luck! West Elm has a shop local section with products made by Michigan designers. Each product has a card next to the display, noting the designer and a little about them so you can be really familiar with whose item you are purchasing. If you are a home décor designer or gift maker, who would like to be considered to have your products sold at West Elm, you can speak directly to management at the store or email westelmlocal@wsgc.com. Some lucky local designers’ products may even make it to their website, for more selling opportunities!

The store is located at 211 W. Maple, in Birmingham, and the website is www.westelm.com. Happy decorating!