Bending Detroit

Last week, while half of our team was taking on design week across the pond in London, a few other Bend team members were in Detroit getting the lay of the land in the re-developing city. It's no secret that Detroit has seen its fair share of challenges over the years, but with the help of the Die Hard Detroiters they are revitalizing the city, and making it great again. It is the entrepreneurs, artists, designers, developers, architects, foodies, and urban farmers putting their heart and soul back into rebuilding Detroit, and we are far on our way.

As some of you may know our fearless leader, Gaurav Nanda, was born and raised in the suburbs of Detroit and cut his teeth in the design world working for General Motors as a sculptor. His early years in the city definitely had a major impact on our line as we know it today. With a few members of our team from the area, we are all pretty excited to see not only how much the city has grown, but also how much focus Detroit is putting on design.

Our team landed in the city and found themselves smack-dab in the middle of The Detroit Design Festival. There are events such as Murals In The Market, which attracts over 50 local and global street art muralists to the Eastern Market district who install colorful one of a kind pieces of art. We found ourselves visiting several design firms like dPOP! who we have worked with for a number of years. The photo on the right of our Bend canvas tote on the vault door just happens to be the door to the old bank vault the firm uses as part of their office.

There are trendy new restaurants popping up all over the city begging to be tasted. Katoi being one of them, a southeast asian inspired restaurant that sources locally. We also loved seeing our favorite food group behind Greendot Stables open up Johnny Noodle King and Huron Room.

Another new favorite on our many stops would have to be at our local Detroit retail partner Nora Modern. This store is a great addition to the design community of Detroit. They curate fresh and modern global design and bring it all to the city in a beautiful showroom space on Cass Ave. Next time you're in the area we suggest you stop in. We also love the work of fellow friends Kyle Evans Designs who do new and innovative creations, keeping us on our toes, anticipating the next out of box idea.

Well that was our Detroit wrap up. We are excited to keep expanding the Bend presence in the city and continue to help lend to the new design forward Detroit. Being a design brand with Detroit roots we really want to give back to the city that has given us so much. We are excited to see what the next 5-10 years have in store. We do believe it has the potential to be great once again and one of the best cities in North America.

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