You've heard of Shinola, and its trendy, costly Detroit-made products that the New York art crowd loves?
Make room for "Detroit Treads" flip-flops, crafted from tires that are dumped in the city's vacant lots.
They're $25.
Laura Berman writes in the Detroit News that the latest Detroit retail item is being pushed by the Rev. Faith Fowler and designed by students at the University of Michigan and the College for Creative Studies. Among the workers who turn out the sandals are homeless people and the developmentally disabled.
The sandals come from the 35,000 discarded tires that Cass Community Social Services picks up every year through its Green Industries division. Those are just a fraction of the hundreds of thousands of tires left on vacant lots, vacant buildings and even the basements of vacant houses in Detroit.
“We go tire-hunting,” Fowler, the executive director and chief visionary at CCSS, tells Berman, “and I promise you that no matter how much money is spent on blight removal, we’re never going to run out of our raw material.
Detroit Treads, stylishly embossed with a “D,” are finished with flip-flop-style straps of donated nylon. The first 300 pairs were given away to attendees at a fireworks benefit for the nonprofit that Fowler created 12 years ago. The Treads were an instant hit, judging by Facebook photos posted the next day.
Recycling from Detroit's abandoned buildings is a growing business. A store called Workshop in the Fisher Building produces furniture from reclaimed lumber, and Reclaim Detroit sells butcher blocks, planter boxes and other products.
Detroit Treads can be ordered by calling (313) 883-2277.
Read a 2011 story from the University of Michigan news service about the origins of the flip-flop business.
Watch the Detroit Treads commercial:
