{"id":5707,"date":"2022-06-20T18:43:12","date_gmt":"2022-06-20T18:43:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shinola.com\/our-stories\/?p=5707"},"modified":"2022-06-22T14:43:43","modified_gmt":"2022-06-22T14:43:43","slug":"elevating-the-faces-behind-the-brands-tori-nichel-of-maison-black","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ourstories.shinola.com\/our-stories\/elevating-the-faces-behind-the-brands-tori-nichel-of-maison-black\/","title":{"rendered":"Elevating the Faces Behind the Brands: Tori Nichel of Maison Black"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
The multi-hyphenate designer and entrepreneur Tori Nichel is a Detroiter on a mission to elevate creatives in a fashion market that\u2019s influenced by\u2014but rarely gives due credit to\u2014the Black culture and designers behind the trends.<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
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Reach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s a word one hears often in the world of business marketing and metrics. But the kind of reach that Tori Nichel practices is something much more human.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It speaks to her curated e-tail platform, Maison Black, that lifts visibility for Black fashion designers. But it also encompasses her philosophy of outstretched hands and opportunities for authentic expression. For every step Tori Nichel takes forward, she reaches out and pulls an emerging young multi-hyphenate alongside her. For every collaboration she organizes, runway she populates, or project she begins, she pulls back an industry curtain to reveal the Black designers behind the fashion with the goal of educating the world and inspiring the next generation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For Tori Nichel, the idea that aspiring creatives need to \u201csee it to be it\u201d is part and parcel of her personal mission, rooted in her own journey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAround the age of seven, I announced to my family that I wanted to be a fashion designer,\u201d she laughs. \u201cAnd from that point on, it was all things fashion.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n
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Tori Nichel is wearing APOTTS <\/a>collection<\/a>, designed by Aaron Potts, a born-and-raised Detroiter featured in the Maison Black pop-up at Shinola last fall.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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\u201cOne of the things that really got me inspired was a Barbie doll my sister had called Fashion by Me. And this Barbie doll also was Black. This was in the early 80s, so Black dolls weren\u2019t all that common\u2014my mom had to go on a wild goose chase for them.\u201d The Barbie came with all the fabric, trimmings, glue sticks, and sequins needed to create your own designs. It made such an impression on Tori Nichel that by the time she got to Michigan State, she named her first website Fashion by Me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
From draping on her Barbie to leafing through her mom\u2019s fashion magazines to sketching her own designs over the glossy photos of models, Tori Nichel was laser-focused on honing her passion. At the age of sixteen, Tori Nichel met a woman named Christiane, a former model, designer, and FIT student and retired fashion professor at the Art Institute of Chicago. \u201cShe was a little design school in our backyard,\u201d and Tori Nichel made it her mission to apprentice with her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cShe was really resistant in taking me\u2014I was so young. Most of her students were in their early thirties. She was like, you\u2019re in high school, how are you going to do your homework?\u201d But like so many Detroiters, Tori Nichel is nothing if not determined. Christiane relented, and Tori Nichel apprenticed with her from her junior year of high school through college. The experience followed her from Michigan State to the Fashion Institute of Technology to her early days with Dana Buchman and Kenneth Cole.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In addition to skills like pattern making, Christiane endowed Tori Nichel with a strong foundation of the wisdom and wit she would need to be authentically herself in the world of fashion. \u201cShe taught me how to show up as a designer, how to present myself as a creative professional, how to foster my relationships\u2014even so far as to how to use my sass with the street vendors! She\u2019s one of the reasons you and I are talking today.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This mentorship and guidance is a key part of the projects she pursues now.<\/p>\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n
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\u201cIf you see that spark in someone young, that determination and wherewithal, that commitment and that drive, I feel that it\u2019s our duty to foster that and pave the way or create space for that to flourish and blossom. To take the chance on them.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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While Tori Nichel still designs and consults, her ever-evolving main project is Maison Black, a curated online retail destination of which she\u2019s the Founder and Chief Creative Officer. Maison Black\u2019s mission is to be a destination for Black creatives to be shopped and recognized for inspiring and leading global style. It\u2019s a platform that provides access, exposure, longevity, and sustainability for Black designers in the fashion industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For Tori Nichel, it marries her passion for fashion and her purpose-driven vision to serve the Black designer community.<\/p>\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n
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\u201cI\u2019m hoping to use the platform not just to be an e-tailer that\u2019s as shoppable, powerful, and inspiring as a Saks, Neiman\u2019s, or Bergdorf, but when you think of culture, community, connectivity, how can we set up a space for Black and Brown creatives to thrive as their authentic selves, expand their reach, and have longevity.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This past October, Tori Nichel arranged a Maison Black pop-up at the Shinola flagship store on Canfield Avenue, in the heart of the city\u2019s midtown shopping center. \u201cI walked into the Shinola Woodward store with my business cards just done,\u201d she laughs. She pitched the idea to the store managers, who passed it on up the chain and got the conversation going. She went out on a limb, but had faith in the brand\u2019s investment in the community. \u201cIt really was rooted in our common guiding principles of design excellence, appreciation of craftsmanship, and bringing joy to our everyday lives\u2014that synergy, and that connectivity to the community.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Recently, Tori Nichel branched out from curation to creation with a content series called Black Behind the Brands, in which she pulls back the curtain and spotlights Black excellence with leaders directing multimillion dollar brands. \u201cI don\u2019t want to say they\u2019re invisible, but you wouldn\u2019t know about them unless someone told you about them. No one has given them their flowers and accolades, all you know is Gap. Target. Loft.\u201d It all harkens back to the mission of reach.<\/p>\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n
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\u201cIt only takes that one person to inspire that younger Tori to say, I see myself. If that person can get there, I can get there. And that\u2019s why it\u2019s important to share these stories.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Catch Tori Nichel’s curated a pop-up boutique at L.A.’s world-renowned Beverly Center this summer. Black Behind the Brands can be found on the Maison Black website at www.maisonblack.shop<\/a> and YouTube.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Jumpsuit by APOTTS<\/a>. Energy by Tori Nichel.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The multi-hyphenate designer and entrepreneur Tori Nichel is a Detroiter on a mission to elevate creatives in a fashion market that\u2019s influenced by\u2014but rarely gives due credit to\u2014the Black culture and designers behind the trends. […]<\/p>\n
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