This coveted residency is why a Philly designer may be mainstream fashion’s next household name. By Jenna Knouse
Incubator. Say it five times fast. Want a challenge? Define it. Just kidding. Don’t. That’s why Google exists. Fortunately (or unfortunately), I picture words. Tractor? A John Deere. Neighbor? The old man with the fuzzy cow. Incubator? A chick hatchery. Pardon, my country roots are showing.
The new class, from left: Janell Wysock, Christie Sommers, Jessica Joy London, Latasha Hall, Amy Voloshin and Sara Keel.
But, that’s just my mental image. Incubators don’t have to be peep hatcheries. The Philadelphia Fashion Incubator reboots this month, and it’s hatching a different type of chick. This year’s class, its sixth, is comprised entirely of women.
Pause. Rewind. What’s the Philadelphia Fashion Incubator, again? It’s an annual 12-month residency for six designers committed to growing their labels in the Philadelphia area. The program nurtures business awareness through networking, seminars and access to resources.
“I hear them talking about their brands and think, I remember saying the same stuff, saying I’m going to do this and that,” laughs Conrad Booker (conradbooker), a graduate of the incubator’s last session. “These industry professionals come in, and they kick you in the face.” Figuratively, of course. And it’s all for the greater good.
“Being at the incubator, I changed in ways I wouldn’t have without the program,” says Nigel Richards (611 Lifestyle), another grad from the last session. “Whether I would have quit or gone a different direction, I don’t know. But, I’m grateful for the path the program’s put me on.”
The incubator’s designers-in-residence benefit from exclusive access to resources and decision-makers that can mean all the difference in making it and not.
An opportunity to change direction, that’s what the Philadelphia Fashion Incubator provides. It turns side jobs into careers, chicks into hens. How, exactly? Well, the curriculum is fluid, says executive director Elissa Bloom. It’s tailored to cater to the strengths and weaknesses of the current class. The designers themselves decide on their goals, and the incubator catalyzes the process to achieving them.
Where keeping it local is a prerequisite for the designers-in-residence, it’s becoming a more devout interest with each new class. Early on, it was meant to seed an arid scene. But now it’s evolved to become part of a larger consciousness.
“It is exciting to see our designers’-in-residence commitment to manufacture in Philadelphia and keep it all local. From the production of their collections to using local photographers and printers for marketing, they are the future, and making an impact on revitalizing the region’s once-thriving fashion sector,” Bloom says. “It is inspiring to see many of them focused on sustainability and zero-waste design and how creating social impact companies are a core part of their business models and brand DNA.”
Eveningwear and wedding dress designer Latasha Hall’s roots go hand-in-hand with her ambition. “My aunt’s best friend taught me how to sew my first outfit in fourth grade,” she says. “Since then, I couldn’t stay away from the machine.”
Still, in this industry, passion, and talent, for that matter, will only carry you so far. To advance beyond that ceiling requires access to an inside track that eludes even the most promising designers. The incubator won’t place you there, but it’ll load up your arsenal so that you stand a better chance of discovering it—or it discovering you—on your own.
Which is why the incubator has come to represent a sort of safe haven for its designers, who have already sacrificed much in pursuit of innovation. Sara Keel left her 11-year gig in corporate fashion to turn her hobby into something real. And Amy Voloshin started using her formidable print company as a springboard to craft her own designs.
Christie Sommers believes in zero-waste. She uses straight-stitch sewing, a Japanese technique, to minimize it. While knitwear designer Janell Wysock employs yarn bits in her up-cycled pieces. Jessica Joy London isn’t far removed from their spirit. She paints silks with organic patterns to encourage connection with nature.
Together, they make for a vivid vision of the future that, at this rate, appears likely to include a local designer among the household labels.
Everybody loves to eat these days, but the proposition of thoughtful cocktails served in antique glassware is too easy—and distinguishing—of an upgrade for your next dinner party to ignore. And we’re making it even easier by telling you how to pull it off.
By Scott Edwards · Photography by Matthew J. Rhein
Before we move forward, think back, back to your last dinner party and the way you let your guests have at your wet bar. Left to their own devices, a gin and tonic became a highball brimming with Bombay Sapphire, a glass of red became a goblet so full it needed to be sipped before it could be moved. In hindsight, their reception of each course was a little overly enthusiastic, even considering the care you invested in every morsel you plated.
Now imagine your next party, only this time, instead of saying hello and immediately retreating to the kitchen, you’re saying hello and escorting your guests, one by one, two by two, to a properly manned bar—your co-hosts for the night. You’re still dipping into the kitchen, but you’re doing so with a finely crafted cocktail in hand. Your guests are enjoying the same—in antique glassware, no less. And they’re actually enjoying them, not just getting blitzed.
Welcome to a night with Spirit Forward, a craft cocktail caterer. Yes, the “craft cocktail” part is worth noting because this is not a simple bartending service, like the kind you’re relegated to at a wedding. With all due respect, those are hired hands being paid to pour heavy (or light, depending on your budget). Spirit Forward, on the other hand, is Dan Hamm, who works as the bar manager at a.bar, which is pretty much the epicenter of Philadelphia’s craft cocktail scene, and Stephanie Smith, a consummate hostess who cut her teeth at the revered Vernick Food & Drink. Hiring them for your party is akin to recruiting Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid to fill in for your next rec-league game.
Cocktail catering is such an easy and distinguishing upgrade, it seems impossible that it’s not more prolific. Because it’s not, the inquiries that Smith and Hamm field are fairly simple: I’m having a party, and I’d like to do more than vodka and sodas and wine. What can you do? We tend to marry ourselves to the same drink or two for no real reason other than it’s what we’ve been drinking for as long as we can remember. Really, the idea of sifting through prospective candidates is exhausting, and we just want a drink, our drink. But what if you had an expert do the sifting for you? That’s essentially what this is like. They’ll ask you for the details of your party—how many people? What kind of vibe?—and then they’re going to ask you what you like to drink. And even if, try as you might, all you can come up with is “vodka and soda,” they’re going to be able to dig a little deeper to flesh out a full-on flavor profile. That way, you’ll end up drinking a revelation, even if it’s just the best vodka and soda you’ve ever tasted.
Hamm possesses a rare ability to elevate both the most tried and true and obscure classics with novel-but-appropriate twists, and always with an eye toward fresh and seasonal, not unlike a French-trained chef. He started bartending in the deep end. Overnight, he was expected to memorize the recipes for and accurately reproduce hundreds of cocktails, classic and contemporary. He responded by digesting it all remarkably fast and then promptly riffing on that newfound knowledge. In short order, finicky regulars started seeking direction from him. They’re the same ones who planted the seed for Spirit Forward. Can you teach me how to make this? Can you tend bar at my wedding?
Stephanie Smith and Dan Hamm make it look easy. It’s not.
He met Smith around the start of all this. And the more he began to conceptualize Spirit Forward, the more he realized how ideal a complement she was to him. “She has an amazing palate and she has that eye for design,” he says.
Smith’s fully capable of jumping behind the bar and thinning a thirsty crowd, but her stamp’s all over everything else—booking, planning, organizing, marketing and the staging. “When we go to an event, we really want our bar to look custom-made, as custom as the drinks themselves,” she says.
That’s right; they design their own bars. In fact, the only thing they don’t supply is the booze; it’s prohibited by law. So what they do instead is provide you with a detailed list of what they’ll need. If you were doing this on your own, you were going to stock the bar anyway.
Another reason we tend not to stray from our limited repertoire is a bar of any kind can be an intimidating and pretentious place. If you don’t have the ingredients and preferred brands of your drink of choice down, there’s a high degree of likelihood that you’re going to be sniffed out as a fraud. This isn’t that. For one, Smith and Hamm also teach cocktail-making classes through Spirit Forward, so there’s a conscious, gentle way that they go about enlightening. For another, this is your home and these are your friends. Should you or anyone else ask how a drink’s made—and you will—Smith and Hamm are obliged to stop what they’re doing and write it down. Experience has taught them that “that stays with them more than any drink you’ll make them,” Hamm says. The same will be said of the night as a whole.
With an opening date finally set, we surveyed the scene at La Cabra Brewing, in Berwyn. If it sounds familiar, it’s because its brewer’s been testing the waters for a while now.
By Mike Madaio Photography by Matthew J. Rhein
In recent weeks, Dan Popernack’s found himself reflecting often on the circuitous route that’s led him, a home brewer once upon a time, to the cusp of opening his own craft brewery and gastropub.
“I’ve been developing this concept for 10 years,” he told me last month, as we surveyed the construction-in-progress at the future home of La Cabra Brewing in Berwyn. Though, later, I’ll find an interview he did back in 2013 in which he quoted the same duration. “Ten years of thinking, planning, researching, talking to every bartender, brewpub owner, distributor that I could before I felt confident enough.”
What he’s created is a compelling lineup of beers that deftly walks the line between and adventurous, paired with a Latin-inspired menu that runs much the same, served in a dramatic setting in which every intriguing, historic feature’s been restored and accentuated.
“We probably could’ve been open by now, but we don’t believe in rushing,” Popernack says. “We’ll open exactly on time.”
That time came Tuesday.
Popernack taught himself home-brewing in college. “My parents wouldn’t let me drink in the house, but they gave in when I said I’d make it myself,” he says. Later, he worked at The Beeryard, in Wayne, while he pursued his master’s at Villanova. La Cabra started to come into focus in 2013, while he was teaching at The Phelps School and home-brewing in his spare time. It was then when he launched a mailing list that quickly found a cult-like following. In it, Popernack described his latest experimentations and made available “samples” to the recipients. The arrangement is officially described as a “brewery-in-planning.” Aspiring craft brewers can make and share their beer with the public, but they can’t sell it. Think of it as a means of fostering a grassroots following with the expectation that it’ll lend some momentum to an eventual brick-and-mortar opening.
Popernack’s since built his reputation, and, in turn, La Cabra’s, on sour, funky beers crafted from wild yeast and barrel-aging, the kind that the nerds seem to make the most noise about. But they tend to not play as well with the casual-drinking crowd. “Of course I’m going to keep doing that,” Popernack says, as he shows me around an aging room in the basement. “But if that’s all I wanted to do, I would have stayed home.”
One of his aims is to riff off the food menu. “Playing with food pairings is actually one of my favorite things,” he says. And he’s quite talented at it. La Cabra’s Juno Pale Ale, infused with lime zest and rosemary, may be the best taco beer I’ve ever had.
Popernack’s, of course, devoted as much intention in partnering up and assembling his staff, from the chef to the servers, as he has to every tangible component. But while their missions may be aligned, they’re not singular.
“The bottom line is that we want people to feel welcome here, like they’re walking into our home, whether they’re really into beer or not,” Popernack says. “I’m obviously passionate about it. I’ve devoted my life to it. But beer isn’t everything. If we can be good neighbors, great members of the community, then we’ll really have achieved something.”
La Cabra Brewing, 642 Lancaster Avenue, Berwyn.
5 Fall-inspired Beers You Need to Try—And Not a Hint of Pumpkin to be Found
It’s not seasonal and it’s not especially trendy—the extra special bitter was big at the inception of the craft movement, back in the nineties—but this ale’s a near-perfect match for this schizophrenic weather. Toasty, mild sweetness up front, crisp and dry on the back end.
Crafted by cold-steeping an already-rich, brown ale with freshly roasted coffee beans, the resulting flavor is fueled by waves of sweet raisin and molasses with a pleasantly bitter undercurrent.
What ESTATE Boutique owner Brittany McGinley will be wearing this fall. Photography by Matthew J. Rhein
As a mother of twin two-year-old boys and the owner of an even younger clothing shop, Brittany McGinley lives by a code: efficiency. She even has a formula for her wardrobe: one part seasonal stuff + one part staples + one part statement pieces. The seasonal component keeps her on point with the trends. The statement component’s treated as an accent, which limits wear and tear on the clothing (and her wallet). And the staples act as the canvas for it all.
Aide from being pragmatic, McGinley also knows her textiles and tailoring. She opened ESTATE Boutique in January in the same Doylestown building where she worked as a teenager at Sew Smart Fabrics, becoming deeply familiar with the minutiae of fashion design. Her inventory reflects an insider’s knowledge of craftsmanship, veering between the icons—Helmut Lang, Diane von Furstenberg, J. Lindeberg—and the emerging talent—Ulla Johnson, Smythe, Spr Wmn, IRO. It’s a rare cross-section. But, then, one-stop shopping is the only kind that works for McGinley.
Here, she shares her fall essentials—because she already had them figured out in July.
Jewelry by kismet by milka + Ilsa Loves Rick Like a lot of women, I love to layer my jewelry, like, say, a higher-end necklace from kismet by milka with another by the small-batch, Bucks-based collection Ilsa Loves Rick.
Maybelline Instant Age Rewind Concealer and Foundation My ultimate drugstore makeup finds. Built-in applicators plus sunscreen (with the foundation) for under 20 bucks.
The Crossings 2014 Sauvignon Blanc I’m actually a New Zealand citizen. My dad’s a Kiwi. We spent three weeks touring the country by RV a few years ago, and The Crossings was one of my favorite vineyards we hit along the way.
botkier Crossbody + Torregrossa Ridge bags For everyday use, the smaller Torregrossa bag is my go-to. When I need to be more pulled together, I coordinate the larger botkier bag with my outfit and use the Ridge as my wallet. Both are cross-body bags, which is critical when you’re constantly juggling two-year-olds.
Milly Italian Cady Trapunto Tie-Waist Trousers The high-waist silhouette is going to explode this fall, which is great news because it’s not only flattering, it’s also a very comfortable fit.
Seda France Candles (Malaysian Bamboo and Japanese Quince) + Satya Sai Baba Incense (Nag Champa) I need to be surrounded by candles or incense. Seda France candles burn for days on end.
Burning Torch Flight Jacket I love anything that’s beautiful and functional, and this reversible jacket is that. The outer shell features this Japanese-inspired embroidery, while the inner shell’s clean olive satin
The clothing and accessories featured here are available at ESTATE Boutique.
Pick up your lagging grill game with these under-appreciated cuts.
The bacon-looking cuts, pictured alongside the pork shoulder, are the kalbi.
We’re all well aware of how long your burger recipe was under development before you finally branded it your own. And, yes, your chicken breasts are impressively moist, the cross-hatching on your T-bones, a masterful display. But it’s all starting to feel a bit stale. When you grill almost year-round and your wheelhouse consists of a few different things, it’s inevitable. Longevity comes from being bold enough to constantly reinvent yourself. Now’s not the time to hide behind a little bit of success. Or your smoking grill. (We can still see you.)
To spare you from the need to humble yourself, we asked Damon Menapace to show us the way through the dog days ahead. Damon’s the executive chef at Kensington Quarters, the Frankford Avenue restaurant that’s developed a stout reputation for knowing how to handle meat. Case in point, KQ has its own butcher shop, which Damon also took on earlier this summer.
Here, he offers up a few under-appreciated cuts that cook up especially well on the grill. (All, BTW, are available at the KQ butcher shop.)
Kalbi Short Ribs
Also known as galbi, these Korean barbeque-style steaks are cut thinly across the bone, so they’ll grill up fast. “Nobody wants to braise a big, square-cut short rib in the summer,” Damon says. Marinate them beforehand. They’ll come out tender, juicy and concentrated with flavor.
Country-style Pork Ribs
The name is misleading. These aren’t actually ribs. They’re bone-in slices of pork shoulder that are cut to resemble the barbeque favorite. They cook similarly, too. Think of them as a cross between pulled pork and ribs. Damon says, “Cook ‘em low and slow and with plenty of smoke.”
Chuck Eye Steak
“The poor man’s rib eye,” as he calls it, is taken from farther up the shoulder. “Most people hear the word ‘chuck’ and think it’ll be tough,” Damon says, “but this lovely little steak is tender, fatty and super-rich.”
Lamb Shoulder Chops
Sliced with a band saw across the bone, these inch-thick chops are an affordable alternative to the more widely-known lollipops, and they’re packed with way more meat and flavor. “Throw them on the grill with a little baste,” Menapace advises. “They can be chewy, but it’s fun to get messy ripping into them. This is summertime grilling, after all.” —Mike Madaio
We know you’re eyeing up a whole lot of nothing, whether it be by the pool or the ocean, but there’s a lot that’s about to go down. We’re not saying that you need to be there for all of it (for now), but you should at least get to know the major players so that you can hit the ground running once you return your lounge chair to its upright position. Portfolio by Scott Edwards
Ashley Smalley | Owner | The Selvedge Yard | New Hope
The brimming displays of the N3rd Collective.
The Selvedge Yard is distinctly cooler than I am, but I still felt a kinship with every inch of its 600 square feet from the first time I lingered within its walls—the Conrad Leach iconography prints, the midcentury blueprints doubling as wallpaper, the Silver Piston Indian Head pendant and chain, the red button-down made from shop-rag fabric that Ash pulls down and holds up close so I can appreciate the stitching, which is done by a 1930s Merrow sewing machine—and the $175 price tag.
The shop opened last summer, but it was an illustrated lifestyle before that. Ash’s husband, JP, has worked in all facets of fashion. Seven years back, looking for a creative outlet beyond his work, JP started The Selvedge Yard, the blog, with the intent to become the Internet’s denim aficionado. “And I got bored shitless within like three weeks,” he says. So he grew his scope and latched onto something more intimate—“All the things,” he says, “that have turned me on throughout my life, that make me who I am.” Which, of course, distinguishes him from none of the countless other bloggers. What does: “I grew up in a house with Harleys, and pot and dobermans. And a lot of the icons for me, growing up, were Evil Knievel, and Jungle Pam and Linda Vaughn. Even Fonzie.” Straightaway, there was a connection.
JP and Ash are big on community. They live in New Hope, too, and like to refer their customers to their favorite spots around town. When they opened the shop, they called upon their massive online community, as they refer to it, filled with artisan designers, to help them stock it.
“I look around and I don’t see just product,” JP says. “I see people’s faces, I see relationships.”
And just as JP’s life has grown to encompass Ash, they’ve begun to incorporate women’s clothing into The Selvedge Yard. Now that they’re both getting what they need out of the shop, you and your other half can too.
Michael (pictured) and Dino Kelly-Cataldi | Owners | Dino’s Backstage & The Celebrity Room | Glenside
Beneath the charcoal and chocolate surfaces, the red wallpaper that looks like tufted leather, the shimmering chandeliers and the larger-than-life portraits of Jane Russell and Jean Harlow, beneath the $1.5 million-, yearlong-renovation, Dino’s Backstage & The Celebrity Room comes down to pure devotion.
When Michael and Dino got together 18 years ago, both were scraping bottom. Michael had just closed his shop and Dino lost his restaurant. Slowly, they began to lift each other up. Dino got a corporate job. But Michael was never going to abandon his singing. In time, Dino came to realize that his love of Michael would lead him back to the unthinkable. This won’t be his restaurant, though. It’ll be theirs. “We’re taking a leap of faith here,” Dino says. “If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t really matter because we still have each other.”
“I love the sentiment of that,” Michael counters. “But I’ve never been so sure of something.”
When it opens in early June, Dino’s will be an entirely unique breed, a midcentury-era supper club, complete with a decadent dining room and a seductive cabaret lounge. “I’m sort of thinking, like, 1948,” Michael says. “Why, in my mind, 1948, I’m not quite sure.” Either way, it’s meant to invoke a day when going out was an indulgent affair, when all involved, right down to the hosts, could exit the grind and slip into a virtual reality where anything felt possible for a few hours. And usually was.
Elizabeth Cassel | Owner | Baby Scout and Scout Salvage & Vintage Rescue
Cassel’s been picking for several years now. She knows where to look and when. And on a typical haul, she figures that 20 percent is exceptional. The rest is passable. She was selling the exceptional stuff before she could unload it from the truck and move it into her Old City shop, Scout Salvage & Vintage Rescue. Granted, it was a good problem to have, but it was still a problem. Sometimes it wouldn’t even make it that far. She’d snap a pic of her find onsite and post it to Instagram, where it was almost always snatched up before she made it back.
So Cassel grew her ranks. She rounded up some friends from The Clover Market, where she also sold, and together, last October, they opened the N3rd Collective in her old storefront. She describes it as “part-boutique co-op, part-small business incubator.” As the collective took off, Cassel, five months pregnant when it launched, had her first child. And she happened upon her next frontier in the process: Baby Scout. We talked in early May, while her son napped. The concept was just taking root then. She’d decorated his nursery, floor to ceiling, in vintage Sesame Street, and a new world exposed itself: kid-friendly vintage. “He has some really funny vintage T-shirts that are waiting for him to grow a little bit bigger,” she says, with a laugh.
Cassel envisions everything from clothing to bedroom furniture, functional as it is fashionable, as has become Scout’s reputation, comprising the collection, which she’ll sell online. That’s likely the direction for Scout too. By the time you read this, Scout will likely be gone from the collective. It’ll live on, fear not. But she’s a mom now, and time is fleeting.
Sarah R. Bloom | Visual Artist | Narberth
The last 18 months have been a rollercoaster for Bloom. On the breakneck descents, she screams to get off. But once she’s safely stowed back in the bay, she steels herself to go again. And again.
“The last year has been a great year for me as far as attention goes with work,” Bloom says. “It’s also been, like, emotionally, the worst year of my life. It’s a very interesting dynamic.”
The onslaught of attention started with a two-minute profile in a documentary series called Wastelands. It posted on a Thursday night in January 2015, and by midday the next day, The Huffington Post and The Daily Mail had requested interviews. Before the year was out, Bloom was named Philadelphia magazine’s favorite visual artist and one of the “28 Badass Women You Should Be Following On Instagram.”
What drew them to her: Self-portraits that are, at turns, vulnerable, dark, funny, combative, gripping. In 2006, she was invited to join a Flickr group called “365 Days,” where its members took and posted self-portraits every day for a year. Bloom figured she’d last a week. But she fed off the support and started to look at herself differently. Midway through Year Two, she began shooting herself amid the ruins of old buildings, as she’s pictured here.
“I was thinking a lot about aging at that point, or starting to, and starting to notice things about my own body that were changing,” she says. “It felt like an apt metaphor to use the abandoned spaces as, like, a reflection of my inner state, and then, eventually, my physical state.”
A couple years back, Bloom, still shooting daily, began framing her years with themes, for added purpose. This year’s: “Feminist Manifesto,” she says with a knowing laugh. She’s pairing black-and-white portraits with quotes from legendary feminists and, conversely, absurd comments made along the campaign trail. Should be no shortage of inspiration this summer.
David Jansen (fifth from left) | Owner/Chef | Jansen | Mt. Airy
Grilled Norwegian salmon, potato and oyster fondue.
When Jansen left The Fountain at The Four Seasons after more than two decades there, his mind was on his three kids, not another restaurant. He spent the next five years being a full-time dad, coaching his youngest daughter’s soccer and softball teams, making them dinner, describing it, in the end, as “the best decision I made.”
But a chef with Jansen’s pedigree—he entered the professional kitchen 35 years ago, at 14—was always going to return cooking. That time came last October, when he toured a rundown, 300-year-old stone building along Germantown Avenue, the latest in a long list of potential restaurant sites. But this one held his attention. It’s close enough to his Chestnut Hill home that his daughter comes around most days to do her homework upstairs, at the charcuterie, cheese and raw bar. And his son works there. (His oldest daughter’s a college sophomore.)
Jansen always claimed ownership of The Fountain, but he was never able to make it truly his own, not like this. But it’s still hard to tell, naturally, where The Fountain ends and Jansen, the restaurant, begins—the perfectionist, French-based cooking techniques, the hyper-attentive service. The white tablecloths are still pronounced, too, but the formality’s been shed. And the menu’s more agile, though hardly cutting-edge. Jansen may have been away for a while, but he hasn’t forgotten who he is. “I don’t do foams,” he says. “I do good sauces, good soups. I cook fish properly.”
Photos: (Ashley Smalley/The Selvedge Yard) Josh Dehonney; (Michael Kelly-Cataldi/Dino’s Backstage & The Celebrity Room; Elizabeth Cassel/N3rd Collective; David Jansen/Jansen) Matthew J. Rhein; (Sarah R. Bloom) courtesy Sarah R. Bloom
