| Fashion News Michigan |
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Sandra Silfven:
Brian Hosmer elevated to winemaker at Chateau Chantal on Old Mission Peninsula
It didn't take long -- just one harvest -- for Chateau Chantal to determine that Brian Hosmer was talented enough to be more than assistant
winemaker. The Michigan State University grad, hired last winter, was named winemaker in November, joining Chantal's founding winemaker,
Mark Johnson.
"We are lucky enough to have two people capable of working as winemaker," CEO and President Jim Krupka of the Old Mission Peninsula
winery said this week. "Brian brings a combination of experience, academic background and personal know-how that makes us confident he is
ready to step up and take that job." And Chantal, I might add, has no shortage of wine to make. It currently produces Michigan wines off of more
than 60 acres of vineyards up north, and more than 200 acres in Argentina.
Johnson oversees the South American venture, and Hosmer the Michigan wines. The job of a new co-winemaker for the home winery opened up
when Coenraad Stassen left in January to become winemaker at nearby Brys Estate.
Hosmer, 27, was born and raised in Flint. He has a Bachelor of Science degree in resource development, a fancy term for managing natural resources
in a way that is sensitive not only to the land but people's interaction with them. That steered him to organic and other forms of agriculture, and
eventually viticulture.
While at MSU, he joined the Study Abroad program and traveled throughout Western Europe as a teaching assistant in a philosophy program, and
discovered wine. "Wine is an everyday part of life there," he said, "and I got used to it." He came home and started making it, and has made it ever
since. His graduate work was in the horticulture department under noted cold-climate growing specialist Stan Howell, now retired, who figures
prominently in the development of the modern Michigan wine industry. Hosmer took the classes in Howell's enology and viticulture program,
which has since fallen victim to the school's cost-cutting ax, and worked last year at Michigan's Bel Lago Winery.
Hosmer is passionate about alternative forms of agriculture. "My goal is not just to make wine here, but to do it in a sustainable, organic fashion,"
he said this week. He said he does not foresee Chantal as ever being certified as organic, but changes are taking place in the vineyards regarding soil
fertility, nutrition, and pest and disease management to move in that direction.
"Some people say it can't be done here," he said, referring to the challenges of a cold climate. "But before you say you can't do something, you
have to give it a try. I don't want to just make wine here, but move things in a sustainable, organic way. It's needed here," he said.
Hosmer is preparing to marry Cristin Popelier of Lake Orion, on Feb. 2, who also is a graduate of MSU, schooled as an agricultural economist, and
currently works for the Traverse City Chamber of Commerce. The two have purchased a small vineyard on Old Mission Peninsula and will
employ biodynamic practices -- using natural fertilizers and sprays, and planting and harvesting according to the astrological calendar. And it's not
voodoo. "Biodynamic" viticulture is a hot button in vineyard discussions around the world.
Speaking of Stan Howell
Dr. G. Stanley Howell, known as Stan to everybody in the wine industry, pulled down a big award this year. The renowned cool-climate
viticulturist and retired professor of horticulture at Michigan State University is only the third person outside the West Coast to get the
prestigious Merit Award from the American Society for Enology and Viticulture. He was cited for research that shaped winemaking and viticulture
in Michigan, which has become elemental throughout the entire industry. Howell is in the company of such luminaries as Ernest and Julio Gallo,
Maynard A. Amerine, Andre Tchelistcheff, Robert Mondavi and Ann C. Noble.
More from MSU
Thinking about growing wine grapes in Michigan? Another noted vine researcher, Tom Zabadal of Michigan State, says global warming will not
change the fact that growers here and in the East face an ongoing battle against damaging frosts, excess rainfall and humidity, and in some states,
hurricanes. To that end, he and Imed Dami of Ohio State University, Martin Goffinet and Tim Martinson of Cornell University, and Mark Chien
of Pennsylvania State University collaborated on the handbook "Winter Injury to Grapevines and Methods of Protection" (Bulletin E2930, $15),
available through Michigan State's Bulletin Office. Zabadal did the heavy lifting to produce this 106-page, all-color, paperback guide. The topic
never has been addressed to this extinct, covering everything from the economics of injuries and replanting, to physiological stress and preventative
and curative vineyard practices. You can order it and learn more online. Click on "Grapes" under "Crops specific" at www.ipm.msu.edu/fruit.htm.
Sandra Silfven You can reach Sandra Silfven at (313) 222-2440 or ssilfven@detnews.com.
Fashion's other Lauren
HILLARY CLINTON HAS YET TO STOP IN HER DESIGN STUDIO, BUT A GIRL CAN DREAM
Rick Kogan
In the Loop
November 25, 2007
Bernard, an affable man who refers to himself only by his first name and to his profession as "neighborhood character," might one day
have a career as a fashion writer. He displayed his aesthetic sensibilities one recent morning when, spotting Lauren Lein walking
down the street with her mixed-breed, 1-year-old dog, said to her, "That is a beautiful suit."
The dog's name is Kinzie, by the way, after the street on which Lein lives and works and where she designed the very suit she was
wearing that impressed Bernard.
"That's a good suit for Chicago," he said.
Lein was raised, for a short time, on a dairy farm near Buffalo, N.Y., the youngest of three girls. Her parents relocated to Michigan,
where she went to high school and to Central Michigan University, graduating with a degree in business and fine arts.
"Just like I have always had this white hair, I have always wanted to be an artist," she says.
That desire led her into retailing jobs in Detroit ("I started by folding men's socks," she says) and to a couple of business partnerships
that didn't work out. She's been in Chicago for nearly 20 years and in business for herself nearly as long.
"It's not easy starting your own business. But it has worked out for me. Still, designing remains the easiest part for me," she says.
"The business sometimes drives me nuts."
Her family helps keep her sane. She has been married for 14 years to Rick Santos, a banker whom she met at a Cubs game when both
were on blind dates with other people. They have two children--13-year-old daughter, Andrea Violet, and a 9-year-old son, Andrew.
They live in River West in the shadow of the Merchandise Mart, surrounded by their mother's creations, which Lein describes as
"professional business clothes with an edge; Eileen Fisher meets Madonna." Fisher is an American designer known for the simplicity
of her work and Madonna, well, you know.
"It is so exciting to me when it all comes together, the colors, textures and patterns," she says.
Her Lauren Lein Ltd. clothes can be found at Macy's and soon at other stores. But most of her clients shop at her studio. "Most of the
women come to me by word of mouth," she says. "There are about 50 who get most of their clothes here. They want custom garments,
something unique."
Though some of these one-of-a-kind pieces can be expensive--one woman paid $5,000 for a petal gown made of hand-woven silk--some
items can be had for a couple of hundred dollars. Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas is a steady customer and Lein dreams about
having three other women one day walk through the door.
"Lisa Madigan, pregnant or not, Hillary Clinton, win or lose," she says. "I'd love to have those two as clients. Oh, and Madonna, of
course."
Model D-troiter: Rufus Bartell
By: Nancy Kaffer
December 11, 2007
The name of the store is Simply Casual. If you don't understand what that means, take a look at owner Rufus Bartell, clad in a classic
suit updated with wraparound cufflinks and distressed city boots, seated on a Victorian armchair that's part of his store's central
conversational grouping.
For the fashion-forward shopper, Bartell has it all — premium jeans, this season's tunic length tops, classic dress shirts, cocktail frocks
... it's a lifelong love affair with fashion, manifest in this Livernois storefront.
But Bartell’s ambitions exceed creating a sartorially superior environment.
Simply Casual occupies a storefront on Livernois north of Outer Drive, on the stretch between Six Mile and Eight Mile. It was once
called the Avenue of Fashion when it was chockablock with clothiers, milliners and other cornerstones of the fashion industry. But
times changed. The street took a turn for the worse – though the surrounding neighborhoods— Sherwood Forest, Palmer Woods,
University Commons —are some of the city’s most beautiful and most stable. Now, the old shopping district is one of six targeted for
renewal by Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, and Bartell is leading the way.
Bartell, raised on Detroit’s west side, would like to see the strip regain its former glory. He points to a handful of new businesses — a
recently-opened art gallery and a colonic shop, among others – and a number of planned establishments, like a suit store and another
ladies apparel shop. His own store is a breath of fresh air for the strip, with big display windows bearing now security bars, thank you
very much.
Plus, he has another store in the works, a shoe store set to open about four doors down from Simply Casual. Shoehouse Boulevard, he
says, will complement the clothing store, offering handbags, belts, shoes and other accessories not carried at the boutique.
But he’d like to see more. He envisions sit-down restaurants, a coffee shop, small business offices, a grocery store, other retail or
service establishments.
Detroit’s bad rap frustrates Bartell, as does the the lack of awareness of the city’s often unique retail establishments. The mainstream
press, he says, isn’t a good corporate partner, focusing on bad news without highlighting thriving small businesses and positive
neighborhood growth.
When it comes to fashion, he says, the city is also short-changed and underestimated. “Detroit is a fashion-forward market,” he says.
Bartell has been intrigued by fashion for as long as he can remember, inspired by the clothing of his fellow Detroiters. He doesn’t want
to publicize his age, but he admits that the leisure suit was a popular style in his youth. “Leisure suits, tweeded coats… we called them
‘old man coats’ because our dads wore them,” he says.
The classic suit styles of the 1930s and '40s hold a special place in Bartell’s heart, but his true love, he says, are shoes – the inspiration
for Shoehouse Boulevard.
The clothes at Simply Casual target a medium price point, Bartell says, although the higher-end market is represented, too. Jeans
start around $60 and go up to $600. Some customers, he says, want a pair of top-dollar premium jeans, but others just want a
comfortable, well-fitted pair of jeans with no regard for the label.
This is the store’s second location, and Bartell’s second foray into retail. A graduate of Western Michigan University with a bachelor’s
in business and a minor in marketing, Bartell got into real estate after college (after a brief stint in management at a local grocery
chain – “I lasted all of about three months,” he says.). Real estate treated him well, but then, about six years ago, a friend acquired a
three-story building in Pontiac, and the pair planned to develop a vertical mini-mall. “I bit off more than I could chew, and it basically
went out of business,” he says.
Undaunted, he moved the retail portion of the operation to a store at Seven Mile and Littlefield. The decision to site in Detroit was
easy, he says: “We believe the market is underserved.”
And now the city's got the numbers to prove it: Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit Social Compact has released a study that shows that
Detroiters spend more than $1.7 billion outside of the city limits.
Last November, Bartell moved the store to its current location in the University District. The storefront, an open, airy space with cool
neutrals and exposed ductwork, was then a former dry cleaners, cluttered with antiquated machinery and rubbish.
Bartell gutted the store, creating a space that’s relaxed yet sophisticated, the kind of store where shoppers should feel at home, free to
perch on a baroque chaise lounge, chat, browse and experiment with clothing. Detroiters are savvy shoppers, Bartell says.
The commercial vitality Bartell hopes to create on his corner of Livernois mirror the plans of a new organization, Independent
Retailers Association, with which Bartell is involved. Made up of retailers in six different categories from coffee houses to clothiers,
the organization is hoping to attract at least a hundred members. Then we can have the opportunity to get involved in the retail
landscape of city," Bartell says.
If a large enough number and wide enough variety of retailers are at the table, Bartell says, the organization participate in crafting the
urban landscape of Detroit – when a new building goes up, or an existing structure has a vacancy, Bartell sees the organization helping
fill those spots, matching businesspeople with properties.
Detroit may not have a mall, he says, but the city could become a boutique shopping center like Yonge Street in Toronto or Melrose in
Los Angeles.
"What I hope to do is fill in the gaps, because the retail landscape is vastly underserved," he says. "When people come on vacation, and
they want to shop, or people here locally want to shop, it could be done in an urban landscape where all excitement and energy of the
landscape all comes together. It just makes for an exciting destination."
Sandra Silfven:
Brian Hosmer elevated to winemaker at Chateau Chantal on Old Mission Peninsula
It didn't take long -- just one harvest -- for Chateau Chantal to determine that Brian Hosmer was talented enough to be more than assistant
winemaker. The Michigan State University grad, hired last winter, was named winemaker in November, joining Chantal's founding winemaker,
Mark Johnson.
"We are lucky enough to have two people capable of working as winemaker," CEO and President Jim Krupka of the Old Mission Peninsula
winery said this week. "Brian brings a combination of experience, academic background and personal know-how that makes us confident he is
ready to step up and take that job." And Chantal, I might add, has no shortage of wine to make. It currently produces Michigan wines off of more
than 60 acres of vineyards up north, and more than 200 acres in Argentina.
Johnson oversees the South American venture, and Hosmer the Michigan wines. The job of a new co-winemaker for the home winery opened up
when Coenraad Stassen left in January to become winemaker at nearby Brys Estate.
Hosmer, 27, was born and raised in Flint. He has a Bachelor of Science degree in resource development, a fancy term for managing natural resources
in a way that is sensitive not only to the land but people's interaction with them. That steered him to organic and other forms of agriculture, and
eventually viticulture.
While at MSU, he joined the Study Abroad program and traveled throughout Western Europe as a teaching assistant in a philosophy program, and
discovered wine. "Wine is an everyday part of life there," he said, "and I got used to it." He came home and started making it, and has made it ever
since. His graduate work was in the horticulture department under noted cold-climate growing specialist Stan Howell, now retired, who figures
prominently in the development of the modern Michigan wine industry. Hosmer took the classes in Howell's enology and viticulture program,
which has since fallen victim to the school's cost-cutting ax, and worked last year at Michigan's Bel Lago Winery.
Hosmer is passionate about alternative forms of agriculture. "My goal is not just to make wine here, but to do it in a sustainable, organic fashion,"
he said this week. He said he does not foresee Chantal as ever being certified as organic, but changes are taking place in the vineyards regarding soil
fertility, nutrition, and pest and disease management to move in that direction.
"Some people say it can't be done here," he said, referring to the challenges of a cold climate. "But before you say you can't do something, you
have to give it a try. I don't want to just make wine here, but move things in a sustainable, organic way. It's needed here," he said.
Hosmer is preparing to marry Cristin Popelier of Lake Orion, on Feb. 2, who also is a graduate of MSU, schooled as an agricultural economist, and
currently works for the Traverse City Chamber of Commerce. The two have purchased a small vineyard on Old Mission Peninsula and will
employ biodynamic practices -- using natural fertilizers and sprays, and planting and harvesting according to the astrological calendar. And it's not
voodoo. "Biodynamic" viticulture is a hot button in vineyard discussions around the world.
Speaking of Stan Howell
Dr. G. Stanley Howell, known as Stan to everybody in the wine industry, pulled down a big award this year. The renowned cool-climate
viticulturist and retired professor of horticulture at Michigan State University is only the third person outside the West Coast to get the
prestigious Merit Award from the American Society for Enology and Viticulture. He was cited for research that shaped winemaking and viticulture
in Michigan, which has become elemental throughout the entire industry. Howell is in the company of such luminaries as Ernest and Julio Gallo,
Maynard A. Amerine, Andre Tchelistcheff, Robert Mondavi and Ann C. Noble.
More from MSU
Thinking about growing wine grapes in Michigan? Another noted vine researcher, Tom Zabadal of Michigan State, says global warming will not
change the fact that growers here and in the East face an ongoing battle against damaging frosts, excess rainfall and humidity, and in some states,
hurricanes. To that end, he and Imed Dami of Ohio State University, Martin Goffinet and Tim Martinson of Cornell University, and Mark Chien
of Pennsylvania State University collaborated on the handbook "Winter Injury to Grapevines and Methods of Protection" (Bulletin E2930, $15),
available through Michigan State's Bulletin Office. Zabadal did the heavy lifting to produce this 106-page, all-color, paperback guide. The topic
never has been addressed to this extinct, covering everything from the economics of injuries and replanting, to physiological stress and preventative
and curative vineyard practices. You can order it and learn more online. Click on "Grapes" under "Crops specific" at www.ipm.msu.edu/fruit.htm.
Sandra Silfven You can reach Sandra Silfven at (313) 222-2440 or ssilfven@detnews.com.
Fashion's other Lauren
HILLARY CLINTON HAS YET TO STOP IN HER DESIGN STUDIO, BUT A GIRL CAN DREAM
Rick Kogan
In the Loop
November 25, 2007
Bernard, an affable man who refers to himself only by his first name and to his profession as "neighborhood character," might one day
have a career as a fashion writer. He displayed his aesthetic sensibilities one recent morning when, spotting Lauren Lein walking
down the street with her mixed-breed, 1-year-old dog, said to her, "That is a beautiful suit."
The dog's name is Kinzie, by the way, after the street on which Lein lives and works and where she designed the very suit she was
wearing that impressed Bernard.
"That's a good suit for Chicago," he said.
Lein was raised, for a short time, on a dairy farm near Buffalo, N.Y., the youngest of three girls. Her parents relocated to Michigan,
where she went to high school and to Central Michigan University, graduating with a degree in business and fine arts.
"Just like I have always had this white hair, I have always wanted to be an artist," she says.
That desire led her into retailing jobs in Detroit ("I started by folding men's socks," she says) and to a couple of business partnerships
that didn't work out. She's been in Chicago for nearly 20 years and in business for herself nearly as long.
"It's not easy starting your own business. But it has worked out for me. Still, designing remains the easiest part for me," she says.
"The business sometimes drives me nuts."
Her family helps keep her sane. She has been married for 14 years to Rick Santos, a banker whom she met at a Cubs game when both
were on blind dates with other people. They have two children--13-year-old daughter, Andrea Violet, and a 9-year-old son, Andrew.
They live in River West in the shadow of the Merchandise Mart, surrounded by their mother's creations, which Lein describes as
"professional business clothes with an edge; Eileen Fisher meets Madonna." Fisher is an American designer known for the simplicity
of her work and Madonna, well, you know.
"It is so exciting to me when it all comes together, the colors, textures and patterns," she says.
Her Lauren Lein Ltd. clothes can be found at Macy's and soon at other stores. But most of her clients shop at her studio. "Most of the
women come to me by word of mouth," she says. "There are about 50 who get most of their clothes here. They want custom garments,
something unique."
Though some of these one-of-a-kind pieces can be expensive--one woman paid $5,000 for a petal gown made of hand-woven silk--some
items can be had for a couple of hundred dollars. Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas is a steady customer and Lein dreams about
having three other women one day walk through the door.
"Lisa Madigan, pregnant or not, Hillary Clinton, win or lose," she says. "I'd love to have those two as clients. Oh, and Madonna, of
course."
Model D-troiter: Rufus Bartell
By: Nancy Kaffer
December 11, 2007
The name of the store is Simply Casual. If you don't understand what that means, take a look at owner Rufus Bartell, clad in a classic
suit updated with wraparound cufflinks and distressed city boots, seated on a Victorian armchair that's part of his store's central
conversational grouping.
For the fashion-forward shopper, Bartell has it all — premium jeans, this season's tunic length tops, classic dress shirts, cocktail frocks
... it's a lifelong love affair with fashion, manifest in this Livernois storefront.
But Bartell’s ambitions exceed creating a sartorially superior environment.
Simply Casual occupies a storefront on Livernois north of Outer Drive, on the stretch between Six Mile and Eight Mile. It was once
called the Avenue of Fashion when it was chockablock with clothiers, milliners and other cornerstones of the fashion industry. But
times changed. The street took a turn for the worse – though the surrounding neighborhoods— Sherwood Forest, Palmer Woods,
University Commons —are some of the city’s most beautiful and most stable. Now, the old shopping district is one of six targeted for
renewal by Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, and Bartell is leading the way.
Bartell, raised on Detroit’s west side, would like to see the strip regain its former glory. He points to a handful of new businesses — a
recently-opened art gallery and a colonic shop, among others – and a number of planned establishments, like a suit store and another
ladies apparel shop. His own store is a breath of fresh air for the strip, with big display windows bearing now security bars, thank you
very much.
Plus, he has another store in the works, a shoe store set to open about four doors down from Simply Casual. Shoehouse Boulevard, he
says, will complement the clothing store, offering handbags, belts, shoes and other accessories not carried at the boutique.
But he’d like to see more. He envisions sit-down restaurants, a coffee shop, small business offices, a grocery store, other retail or
service establishments.
Detroit’s bad rap frustrates Bartell, as does the the lack of awareness of the city’s often unique retail establishments. The mainstream
press, he says, isn’t a good corporate partner, focusing on bad news without highlighting thriving small businesses and positive
neighborhood growth.
When it comes to fashion, he says, the city is also short-changed and underestimated. “Detroit is a fashion-forward market,” he says.
Bartell has been intrigued by fashion for as long as he can remember, inspired by the clothing of his fellow Detroiters. He doesn’t want
to publicize his age, but he admits that the leisure suit was a popular style in his youth. “Leisure suits, tweeded coats… we called them
‘old man coats’ because our dads wore them,” he says.
The classic suit styles of the 1930s and '40s hold a special place in Bartell’s heart, but his true love, he says, are shoes – the inspiration
for Shoehouse Boulevard.
The clothes at Simply Casual target a medium price point, Bartell says, although the higher-end market is represented, too. Jeans
start around $60 and go up to $600. Some customers, he says, want a pair of top-dollar premium jeans, but others just want a
comfortable, well-fitted pair of jeans with no regard for the label.
This is the store’s second location, and Bartell’s second foray into retail. A graduate of Western Michigan University with a bachelor’s
in business and a minor in marketing, Bartell got into real estate after college (after a brief stint in management at a local grocery
chain – “I lasted all of about three months,” he says.). Real estate treated him well, but then, about six years ago, a friend acquired a
three-story building in Pontiac, and the pair planned to develop a vertical mini-mall. “I bit off more than I could chew, and it basically
went out of business,” he says.
Undaunted, he moved the retail portion of the operation to a store at Seven Mile and Littlefield. The decision to site in Detroit was
easy, he says: “We believe the market is underserved.”
And now the city's got the numbers to prove it: Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit Social Compact has released a study that shows that
Detroiters spend more than $1.7 billion outside of the city limits.
Last November, Bartell moved the store to its current location in the University District. The storefront, an open, airy space with cool
neutrals and exposed ductwork, was then a former dry cleaners, cluttered with antiquated machinery and rubbish.
Bartell gutted the store, creating a space that’s relaxed yet sophisticated, the kind of store where shoppers should feel at home, free to
perch on a baroque chaise lounge, chat, browse and experiment with clothing. Detroiters are savvy shoppers, Bartell says.
The commercial vitality Bartell hopes to create on his corner of Livernois mirror the plans of a new organization, Independent
Retailers Association, with which Bartell is involved. Made up of retailers in six different categories from coffee houses to clothiers,
the organization is hoping to attract at least a hundred members. Then we can have the opportunity to get involved in the retail
landscape of city," Bartell says.
If a large enough number and wide enough variety of retailers are at the table, Bartell says, the organization participate in crafting the
urban landscape of Detroit – when a new building goes up, or an existing structure has a vacancy, Bartell sees the organization helping
fill those spots, matching businesspeople with properties.
Detroit may not have a mall, he says, but the city could become a boutique shopping center like Yonge Street in Toronto or Melrose in
Los Angeles.
"What I hope to do is fill in the gaps, because the retail landscape is vastly underserved," he says. "When people come on vacation, and
they want to shop, or people here locally want to shop, it could be done in an urban landscape where all excitement and energy of the
landscape all comes together. It just makes for an exciting destination."
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