Hotel Bruce

Words: Steven Hanson
Photos: Tom Pastoric, Clix Photography
Assistant Project Stylist: Karen E. Salisbury

When Hotel Bruce invited me to be their Style Guru for this issue, I was both honored to be involved in this exciting new online publishing project, and a bit befuddled as to how I should approach my new duties as a reporter on Cleveland’s fashion scene.

Not that I don’t have the credentials! I grew up in Cleveland and moved to New York City at age 18 to attend Parson’s School of Design, where I majored in Men’s Apparel Design. I worked in NYC for more than 20 years, always involved in the fashion industry; design, retail, and advertising. After a series of unfortunate events (yes, really), including 9/11, I decided to move back to my hometown of Cleveland to utilize my talents in a smaller pond. But I was afraid my fabulous lifestyle of expensive designer clothing, wittily charming fashionable friends, and crazy nightly parties that lasted until dawn would all come to an abrupt end. After all, I was moving back to Ohio for god’s sake.

Well, it did end. For a while.

I settled down, and re-acquainted myself with my new surroundings. Then I prepared for a mission: I was going to find the cool people in Cleveland.

I dusted myself off, showered, shaved, put on my best Armani jacket, Burberry necktie, and Old Navy Jeans (I’m a cheapskate when it comes to buying jeans), and started researching anything and everything that might have clues to where these elusive creatures were hiding. I filled up my car —a sobering experience after years of subways and taxis—and drove everywhere just for a glimpse of a girl in Versace, or a guy in Dolce & Gabbana. I went to shopping plazas, malls, “lifestyle centers” (hello, Crocker Park!), coffee shops, restaurants, bars, nightclubs, art museums, concerts, movie theaters, street fairs, fashion shows, and fetish balls.

As I trawled the nooks and crannies of the city, I came to a realization about the state of fashion in Cleveland. With downtown being what it is during the day, and the spread of the suburbs—we have lost a lot of our street life. We really don’t see masses of people here daily as I used to in New York, aside from a few neighborhoods like Coventry and Tremont. But the people of style (I hate the word fashionista—it sounds like we’re an extremist faction of the fashion police who wear berets and carry machine guns) I was searching for were out there, looking great! They were just scattered throughout Northeastern Ohio like Swarovski crystals on a Gucci gown.

And even though we’re not all clustered together as we were in Manhattan, or maybe because we’re more spread out, people of style still have the need to meet and commune with others who share our likes and dislikes, our sensibilities and passions. We form groups of friends with similar tastes and interests, and these friends become our new families, what I am calling our tribes. And before I knew it—by working, going out at night, and just plain day-to-day living—I discovered my tribe.

My tribe happens to be people who I find are individualists; people I admire for being themselves and having the courage to show this to the world on a daily basis through their choice of apparel. If fashion is an extension of oneself, then my tribe has always been one that respects the person within, however different they may seem by appearances, as long as they are true to themselves.

So I am proud to introduce some of the members of my tribe, just a few of the people with great style that I have met upon my return to Cleveland. I’m just sorry we could not photograph them all, as I love so many of them and appreciate their welcoming me into their tribes, too. And that includes the staff of Hotel Bruce.