Interview with Michelle Fite on Philadelphia Fashion -- Part 2

Can you tell me about your involvement with the Philadelphia fashion community? 

My first real venture into the local fashion community was when I was really trying to resolve the patterning and construction with two of my original gowns. These are pieces that developed out of my final senior design project last semester of grad school. They’re very complicated designs that are based on natural forms. 

My desire was to soften origami in a way that was flattering to the female form. These were very challenging projects and I was in Portland before we moved trying to find people to help me answer my questions. What am I missing? How can this be better? How do I attach these things? I love this shape but I don't know how to fully resolve it. How do I line it? Where's the best place for the zipper? 

All these really important things I just could not find help with. When we moved I originally contacted a designer in Germantown and I had a horrible experience. She did not know how to help me with this and instead of saying ”I don't know, this is really out out of my skillset. This is pretty complicated stuff, let me look around and try and find the right person for you,” she just charged ahead with it and she mangled everything I gave her. She cut things out of the wrong fabric even though everything was clearly labeled and then proceeded to throw it all into a box that definitely smelled like she had deliberately sprayed cologne or perfume of some kind at close range into it. So, my first experience with the fashion community in Philadelphia was horrible. I was devastated and I was crying.

I did research and I ended up approaching Made Institute and asked if I could set up a meeting because I didn't know if they could help me but I figured they might know someone. I brought those things in and the pictures that I documented the destruction of my previous work. I thought please tell me someone who can help, because I was just so stuck. At that moment I had a clear vision but my skills just couldn't match it. I just wasn't there, I just needed some very specific help. 

Rachel Ford who runs Made Institute met with me and I was so happy that she was willing to look over what had happened with those garments, where I wanted them to go and to listen to me explain what I was stuck with. I went into that meeting a week after my things had been ruined and she said, “Hey, why don't you talk to Nikki McGonigal, who does a lot of sample work for us. She teaches here and I think that because she's really technical and she used to be a math teacher, she could help you. She would probably already know how to fix some of this stuff but also you could put your heads together to go through the prototyping process.”

That's what I did. Between Rachel and Nikki, I really was able to start the fine-tuning process to get the garments where I needed them to be. But it still wasn't quite right, and as I started moving through the prototyping process it became clear that what I really needed was the old school corselettes training that they do in all the fashion houses that create the proper armature for these types of gowns. Then we realized that she was going to have a couture class that Rachel herself was going to teach that fall and in the meantime she invited me to participate with the school for Philly Fashion Week. 

That was my first real fashion show. I was included in the group and I could really only pull off four pieces because they were complicated, but it was such a great experience to go through the prototyping and really pinpoint what the main issue was. Which is that we had to have the proper under structures for specifically the bodices but a lot of the other layers for these gowns. I went ahead and I showed with Made for Philly Fashion Week in 2018 and then I took the couture class a couple months later. It was just so helpful to have that one intense sticking point be addressed and to feel like I was on my way to really resolving it. 

If you want to know what that kind of garment is you can Google a lot of Alexander McQueen's work and when you see the exposed bustier where you have the boning channels and the under wires and it looks kind of like a bra but with a lot more structure. It comes down to the waist – that's what I'm talking about. That is very necessary for the type of work that I do. Now that I've been practicing that and working on it I can honestly say that my bustiers and all of those structures are based off of the proper French techniques that all the major couture houses use. 

That was really my goal that I have been working on this whole time in the other places that I lived. I just was not finding people who knew how to do it. Luckily Rachel Ford at Made said “Hey listen, this class is coming up I think this is exactly what you need to learn,” and it really was. Because I was able to develop that skill, I’m able to keep that very old-school technique alive by training people on it. I'm able to develop that to fill out my collection and to build-in a classic versatility to all of my work.

 If you don't have components like that, I don't see how you get to call yourself sustainable. Your work should be structurally sound and your materials should be the highest quality. If it's not versatile and it's just a one off item then you're really limiting yourself and you're not fully participating in sustainability.

It really helped me to work with Made on several levels. I have been able to start branching out because of their help and to connect into other events and to work with other people who love sewing. And to meet other designers. Of course, the pandemic affected that but things are picking back up again and I'm able to really meet more designers. I'm taking a tailoring class at Made now so now that I already have the couture class done I'm learning the foundational old-fashioned techniques for proper tailoring. Which is also a dying art!

I would love to be able to incorporate probably some menswear, but just to really understand how to prototype out garments that need those techniques. Because Made offers those on an a la carte basis, I’m able to do that when it makes sense for me.

How does the fashion community in Philly differ from other East Coast cities, specifically in New York?

I think the scene here is much more collaborative. I think that people here see each other more as peers than automatically as competition. I think that we know we're all doing our thing and that there's room for all of us. My mantra over the past year and a half is that we all individually do better when the collective does better. When the scene is better, it's good for everyone. It's in our best interests to strengthen the scene. 

When you're talking about a town or city and you say this place has a crazy music scene or the best food scene what they usually mean is that each neighborhood has that little Main Street in it. Like Philly has East Passyunk and Midtown Village and South Philly has the Italian Market. If you live in a place long enough you know where those pockets of food scene or music scene are. It's so great when you're over by Sampan and Double Knot and Graffiti Bar and all those little restaurants in Midtown Village and you can walk to any of them and then go eat or get ice cream down the street. Or, if you're in Fishtown you've got Johnny Brenda's when you want to see a show and before the show you can eat at like 25 different places. If 10 of them are too booked, you just walk a little further down and you figure out who’s got what. Maybe last time you had BBQ and this time you want noodles – that's a good scene.  All of the restaurants on Frankford Street aren’t like “No, I can be the only restaurant on Frankford!” That’s just not how it works. 

Philly did have that more in its fashion scene. We did have a garment district. We have, in Fishtown Kensington, there's the old sewing factory which was literally called “The Sewing Factory” because they sewed shit there. We had a real scene and there is no reason why we cannot have that again. I think that there just are some missing pieces but the overall vibe with designers is that understanding. There is more cheerleading here. I see us cheerleading and when we’re at shows and we're at events it's like – “Hey, did you see Conrad Booker's work? Oh my God, that dress he put down the runway that was made out of black straw house was off the chain!” I celebrated that and I loved seeing it walk. I love supporting little quirky casual brands like Lobo Mau. That's a brother and sister team and they make things in the Bok building. They’ve got a little boutique off of South Street and I love their black and white pants — I bought a pair! I just think there's more of this camaraderie, there's more of his understanding that this business is really fucking hard and we don't need to make it any harder for each other. We need to find ways to make it better for everyone.

I don't believe that if I had chosen New York that that would be my experience. I've heard horror stories of fashion students saying people who have gone to FIT have had their stuff destroyed on purpose or stolen from them and I just cannot participate in such behavior or support a scene like that. I don't see it here. I think everybody knows that if we can figure out how to draw more attention to Philly as a legitimate fashion place that we're all going to be good. We show up for each other.

Just this past September I had a fantastic experience backstage at Philly Fashion Week. I was one of the last three or four people to show on the finale night. So I had a lot of time to be backstage and to watch other people’s shows and to talk to people and congratulate people. My rack was between Lobo Mau and Casey Black and it was like right across the aisle from Dom Streeter and Renee Hill. It was just a fantastic night of us all backstage in awe of each other's work. “Hey, do you need any help?” or “Hey, I'm done with the steamer. If you need any thread or needles or scissors, I have got my kit. I have time between my things – let me know if you need help dressing or if you've lost anything or you need me to grab you some water.”

That was the scene backstage for all of us and I don't think that if that same show had been just New York designers and just in New York that it would have been the same story. I think we have a different way to do things. It's not a perfect scene for sure but I think that there's just so much heart here that it could really level up soon. I was really impressed with the level of work and production this time. I definitely thought that it is the best show that Philly Fashion Week has put on and I really hope that that continues. 

The day before my runway show I was honored to be included in a live TV interview on Fox 29 with Prajje Oscar, Casey Black and Renee Hill. While it was hilarious to be the only person in that group who had not been on Project Runway, it was great to be included. We were all in the green room beforehand and we were just talking about all the things that designers talk about backstage. It was hilarious and we made eachother laugh and we helped each other out and there wasn't a moment of pettiness in it. I want more of that. I would love for every scene to be that way.

What kind of impact do you want Fite Fashion to have for the community?

There are multiple levels to that. At this moment my strategy is to validate this scene. For at least a decade, I have been trying to really learn how to use the best materials and to construct them properly to really understand why certain things have been a standard way to do them for a really long time. I have such respect for craftsmanship. I don't have respect for the gatekeeping that often accompanies some of these things and I do know that sometimes that's pure competition, but I'm hoping that learning these techniques and presenting them in beautiful ways will make people stop overlooking our city. 

Whether I like it or not, people who are tastemakers in fashion look at certain things. They ask, have you been in these major publications? Have you had editorials? Are you getting stylists pulling you? Have you shown at New York Fashion Week? Have you been to Paris? Do you know certain techniques? How are you presenting your work? And now, of course, we have the added layer of influencers and all of the immediacy – all of the clicks per video that is another metric. But, at the foundation, whether or not I like it, people who would legitimize fashion designers or fashion houses or fashion scenes have kind of a metric. That metric is most often skewed toward higher end items, higher price items, and more specifically things like women's evening wear, which just happens to be my specialty. 

So, my current strategy is to really spell out for people that what I am doing, and what we will continue to do as a fashion house, is create work that is just as good. I'm doing that by showing on a rooftop runway in SoHo during New York Fashion Week. I spent six weeks in Paris learning different high-end fashion techniques and touring places like Atelier Lognon and seeing how they do the pleating, which is the standard high-fashion specialty pleating. To go to Maison Lesage to see the embroidery and the beading and to know that that is the standard for couture beading. I know how to do that because my teacher Robert Haven teaches workshops on that all over the place and he learned it in Paris at Maison Lesage. I toured the workroom of Chanel, who bought Maison Lesage because they wanted to keep that craftsmanship alive. I got to see techniques that I now know how to make while I was there. 

Having those perspectives makes me want to just really hammer home the point that there is legitimate high fashion in Philadelphia. People should be proud to purchase from a woman owned and minority-owned fashion house in Philadelphia and that what you're getting for your money is as good as these other established brands.

That part of my strategy is why I'm continuing to choose to make these particular products. My end goal is to have a legitimate couture house. While Coco Chanel as an individual and her politics during World War II were certainly controversial and problematic, the fact is that she and I do have some things in common. We do not come from wealth, we were both people who experienced some intense hardships growing up. She was an orphan and I grew up in a poor abusive family that was not educated or ambitious. I've had a lot of similar kinds of obstacles. She created something that we still have, by looking at the fashion world at the time and saying “You know what? If other people could do this I can do it too, and I can do it my own way. I can bring my own perspective. I'm going to be high-quality, but I'm going to be a little challenging in my aesthetic. I’m going to say, why can’t it be this way?”

We have the little black dress (one of the things that I wear the most) because of Coco Chanel.  I wear it my way and she wore it her way. That was her whole point – find your path. Find what your skillset is and don't let anyone divert you. If you have conviction, if you have the work ethic and the vision to back it up, then that's what you need to do.

I'm trying to connect a lot of these dots so that I can move to the next level and move out of start-up phase. If I move out of start up phase, then I get to do really great things like be the first couture house that has profit sharing. I get to do things like find promising young designers and technicians and give them the opportunity to learn really seriously amazing skills without going into debt. That is absolutely part of my goal as far as the impact that I want to have on this city is to stop the gatekeeping and to help people who would otherwise not be able to get into fashion.

I’d like to work with high schools and find some promising kids and give them an overview and let them see if this is really a job for them. If they will show up and do the work and have a vision they’re not going to have to go into debt. They're not going to be punished because their parents aren't rich. The debt that I have for my education is unspeakable. I'm not even going to say the number out loud. No one should face that. I know exactly what it is like to not be able to take out a business loan that you worked for because you have crazy student loans hanging over your head. I know what it’s like to be trapped by that and I don't want that for anyone. These skills are very important and they need to be alive and they won't be if it's prohibitively expensive to get into it.

There's no reason why Philadelphia shouldn't have more fashion jobs and what I keep hearing from people who are trying to get into fashion or who are applying for internships or have worked elsewhere is “Please, can I work with you? No one else is doing this and I'm not learning it in school.” When I hear those things it makes me feel like it's absolutely necessary for me to succeed in a lot of different ways and it makes me feel like this is a very valuable business. I'm going to be creating highly, highly skilled jobs that are low to zero impact in a city that is moving towards circularity. 

FABSCRAP just opened in Philadelphia. I've been buying deadstock and scrap material from them for years. I bring my shredded up super tiny fabric textile scraps to FABSCRAP for their shredder so that I do not put textile waste into the garbage. I'm also trying to have a positive environmental impact. I am trying to embrace circularity. I'm trying to work with other designers to collaborate on how we can minimize our own waste that we've already created – how we can minimize it before we create it. I want to set an example, because we're not as entrenched as New York. We have more room to do things in new ways here. I want to take advantage of that. I want to be the first couture house that does profit sharing. I only pay living wages, and I want to set an example of how things could be. I do not contract out. I do not outsource any of my labor.  Everything I do is in-house. There are so many things that you cannot learn if you send something out and bring it back and just open the box and say “Okay, now it's going on rack.”  

I'm providing education that everyone has told me they would not otherwise get. I would say that my impact is intended to be very multi-faceted so I am trying to keep very old techniques going. I'm trying to use them to forge a very progressive path. I'm trying to make everything ethically. I am trying to hold very intense sustainable practices that include full circularity. To push forward the idea that we're only as strong as our scene, so I'm trying to legitimize the scene in general so that there's reason to talk about it. 

Then there's a reason for me to say, “Well, I don't make this kind of casual wear but you really should check out Lobo Mau for that, I think you would really love their work. They're a good company and they’re good people. They do their own silk screening in their house and they run their own boutique and they don't send things to sweatshops either.” There are a lot of other people like that – where I might not make a product. I don't make intimates currently but Madalynne in Philadelphia makes patterns for bras and bralettes and underwear and other intimates. She teaches classes, she has interns and she makes her things in-house as well. You could definitely go buy from her. Or you could buy something from Prajje Oscar. Or Dom Streeter is a lovely person who’s really great at textiles. I just think that the scene really needs some very influential people to say “Oh, yes! These same high-quality amazing things are happening in Philly and they're done ethically and sustainably.” That’s a story to me and that should be gaining a lot more attention because what will happen from that is only good.