August 14th, 2024

For the final installment of the archive (for summer 2024, I would like to keep posting as much as I can during school but I will be BUSY) I interviewed THE woman herself, Miriam. Thank you Miriam for this interview and this entire internship. I appreciate you very much <3
 

What is your name and what do you do in Detroit?

"My name is Miriam Rachel Pranschke-Crandell, and I own Boro, which is a vintage clothing shop in Detroit."
 

Tell me a little about the journey to where you are today.

"I was raised shopping at thrift stores; I was very comfortable with them. We shopped there because we kind of had to. We didn’t have a ton of money, so my mom thought, 'Oh, yeah, let's go a cheaper route.' She studied environmental science, so I think she cared somewhat about environmental issues. That might have been part of it. Once I got to high school and had some of my own spending money, I chose to shop at thrift shops because I enjoyed the hunt and being able to find unique pieces. I also developed my own very strange style. This continued through college. While I was getting my history and art history degree, I worked at a consignment shop and learned a lot from that owner. I worked directly under her, and she showed me the ropes of this type of business and industry. I thought I might do something with museum work when I came back to Detroit, so I interned a bit and volunteered at some of the museums in the area. Then I worked at another small business here called Run Detroit and learned a lot from those owners, who opened up their own little shop. By the late 2010s, I decided to start my own business, so I opened Boro in 2017."

What was one of your strangely styled outfits?

"(laughs) I’ll send you the picture when I find it because it’s pretty impressive. I don’t think it could be called style; it was just me trying to be—well, I wasn’t actively trying to be super weird. It was just me. In my head, I thought, 'I kind of like these patterns together,' but I also knew they were just weird. So I had a vertical striped T-shirt on with plaid vintage pajama shorts. I was wearing mismatched socks, possibly mismatched shoes, and a weird ribbon choker necklace. It just didn’t look like it matched at all or was even trying to be intentionally cool or unmatchy; it was just a little weird. But I love it when I look back on it."
 

Where did the name Boro come from?

"Boro was initially a play on 'borrow' or 'borrowing.' That’s what I was thinking to call the shop in 2015 when I was starting to think about it. I wasn’t sold on it, so when I was studying abroad with my husband—boyfriend at the time—and his class in Lisbon, Portugal, I tried to figure out what second-hand looked like in Europe, and in Lisbon in particular. I met with a couple of consignment shop owners and chatted with them about their experiences, which was insightful. It’s a little bit of a different market there than here. But one of the defining moments for the name came when we went to a design museum in downtown Lisbon. It was a normal museum on the first floor, but the second floor we walked up to was this vast, dimly lit space. I was immediately intrigued when I saw a bunch of hanging tattered garments from the ceiling as part of the exhibition. I thought, 'Oh, this is interesting,' and it was clothing or textile-related, so I thought, 'That’s cool.' As I started poking around, I realized this was an exhibition on boro, which is a Japanese way of piecing together remnants of fabric. It was utilized a lot in the 19th and 20th centuries by generally poorer, farmer-type folk who didn’t have a ton of money and were trying to be resourceful. They would keep scraps of cloth and piece them back together using various stitching methods, and the piece itself would be called boro, or the process to make that piece. I liked that because it was a play on 'borrow,' but it had a lot more meaning to what we’d end up being and doing, which is recycling what’s already in the world and trying to repurpose it rather than trying to have new all the time."
 

What was different about consignment over there as opposed to here? 

"What I was finding—and you know, this was nearly ten years ago, and I’m a slightly different person now than I was then, and just have a different eye—but anyway, what I was finding was that consignment didn’t seem very hip in Lisbon, at least at the time. Perhaps I just wasn’t finding the right spots, but we did a lot of searching. I did a lot of searching while I was there, so the market was definitely high-end. It was known designers like Chanel and, you know, the big guys, Louis Vuitton. It wasn’t as exciting to me because it just didn’t seem like it was a mix of vintage and some more accessible contemporary brands. Again, maybe I just wasn’t finding it, but it did seem like it was focused less on creating a cool experience and more on just reselling known brands."

What made you choose what you're wearing today?

"Well, I am wearing mostly items from the shop. I wore this crop top from Great Eros, which is a New York-based company, to my anniversary dinner, and I liked it. I wanted to wear it again, and because it’s a little less functional than what I sometimes wear, I tried to pair it with more functional bottoms. So I went with utilitarian, wide-leg pants that had pockets that I could put my phone in and walk my dog with. It’s a little easier, although I did wear kitten heel flip-flops, which are from Regeneration, another vintage/thrift shop not too far from here. (pointing to her button-down denim shirt) I’m also considering another outfit from Boro that I like and haven’t purchased yet—it’s a denim set."
 

How are these clothes feeling today?

"Good! I have a hard time with high-waisted pants sometimes because of my height and proportions. I prefer mid-rise for some reason. With a super crop top, I thought high-waisted would look good, but I also like a crop top with mid- or low-rise pants. I think that’s a fun look sometimes. So I’m comfortable for sure. I do wish I maybe tried a different pant."

Any stories behind what you're wearing today?

"This brand, Great Eros, I don’t know if they have a cult following, but it kind of gives that vibe. They do limited runs, so you sometimes can’t find the exact piece if you didn’t get it right when it came out or can’t find it resale, which is really hard to find resale actually. We were fortunate to have someone who worked for them drop off a bunch of things, and so I scooped up some of her things when she had dropped them off initially. It has a matching wrap skirt, which is cute. I was actually going to make it into pants, and then I called my tailor and said, 'Please don’t, just keep it as a skirt.' The pants originally came in maybe two years ago to the shop, and Rachel, who works here—(Rachel says hi from the back)—bought them and then brought them back—or didn’t bring them back, but wore them—and then decided she didn’t want them anymore. I liked them, so then I bought them. They’re from First Rite, which is a more ethical, well-made, modern, minimal, probably LA-based brand."

What's your favorite part about working in consignment?

"It’s always fun to see—even though I’m not out there sourcing the pieces, it’s really fun to see what people bring in and their stories behind the pieces. Sometimes they’re thrifting too, and they’re just out there looking for things, which is fine and good, and they have stories while they’re doing that, which is great too. But some pieces are from their grandmother’s collection, and some pieces are theirs that they found at a certain place and had a really fun time wearing or finding. I think that part—getting to still look through a ton of clothing and curate the selection to be what I want it to be and how I want it to feel while also learning about the people who bring it in—is great."

What are your goals for Boro in the near or far future? 

"I would like to make more money (laughs). I really like how we have evolved. And I think with our next phase, it will become more of what I want it to look like idealistically or with my vision, so that’s exciting. We’re going to be taking in less, so even more curation, but still a similar mix, just a little less so it’s a bit more easy to digest right when you walk in. Goals, I guess, are more cohesion overall with the brand, continuing that, which has always been a goal, reaching new people, becoming a little bit more efficient with our processes, and making more money."

What did you think you might be doing now when you were my age?

"Huh. You’re 21?"

Yeah.

"I think I was a junior or a senior. At that time, I thought I would do something with—at the time, I was in Grand Rapids getting a history/art history degree. I loved going to the Grand Rapids Art Museum, the GRAM. I think I did an internship there and another internship at the gallery in the area. I thought, 'Okay, this seems like something I could do,' although I was never in love with the work I was doing. I don’t know, so I think that’s part of the reason why I probably ended up doing this. But yeah, I think I thought I’d be doing something in a museum or more in the art world, not the fashion world. I know they can be intermixed, but more like art, painting, photography, something like that, focused."
 

What comes to mind when you think of the word fashion vs. the word style? 

"Fashion has more negative connotations, I don’t know why, but style does seem a little bit more personal, unique. Style is a bit more thorough, thought out, developed, and evolving—not just a passing trend. Fashion is more about trends, what’s the latest thing, while style can be more enduring and long-lasting. I mean, it still depends on who it’s for, and style can change even within an individual, obviously, but yeah."
 

Do you have a style icon?

"I mean… Rachel, do I have a style icon? (What?) Do I have a style icon? I mean, Sissy—(I was going to say Sissy)—Sissy comes to mind. I appreciate—(or The Row, the Olsen twins maybe)—maybe Sissy more so because I think she tries to be a little bit more minimal. The Row has a very set style, and Sissy kind of mixes more accessible pieces into her very minimal style. She’ll throw in something that’s more trendy rather than truly timeless or crazily expensive. She’s shorter, so I appreciate that she talks about petite style sometimes and proportions. I don’t really follow anyone, I was going to say Annie, my friend. I get a lot of inspiration from her."
 

Use three words to describe your personal style.

"Oh, God. I don’t know if it would be utilitarian or functional; that does come to mind because I do think about that a lot when I’m getting dressed. I’d say probably minimal. What did I—this was more for home decor, and I don’t know if I agree with it fully, but it was two words: informed eclectic. I feel like I like that phrase a lot because eclectic can obviously be wild, or minimal eclectic, because I do like a couple of funky pieces. I don’t know if I’d say these (points to shoes) are minimal. I don’t know, maybe they are, and to me, they’re not because I don’t wear things like this sometimes…"

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We then discussed advice for pursuing work in this field as well as the joys of fostering dogs, but that info is for my Oberlin sponsors, who funded this internship and made a lot of things possible this summer. Thank you.

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And thank you, Miriam. This is Ana signing off for now, it's been a summer full of growth, learning, and little joys. Don't forget to come to the archive IRL exhibition this Saturday, August 17th, from 7-9pm at Boro!

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bisous et à la prochaine ❤️​​

ana

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