- [Narrator] Funding for this program is brought to you in part by, the Florida Division of Historical Resources, Florida Division of Arts and Culture, Community Foundation of Broward, and the Broward Cultural Division.

(upbeat music) - We had some heavyweight developers, who were interested in creating new subdivisions for a rapidly growing Miami.

As part of the marketing process, we're talking 1917 now, right on the eve of America entering World War I.

As part of the marketing process, they decided that they were gonna hold a contest, and they were gonna ask John Q.

Public and Jane Q.

Public to come up with a name for this proposed subdivision they were developing in what would be the northeast, one of the northeast sectors of Miami, northeast of downtown.

And a lady by the name of Mrs. S.H.

Ward came up with the name Wyndwood Park, W-Y-N-D-W-O-O-D Park.

Later the D was dropped from Wyndwood, and the park was removed from the name of the subdivision.

So, it becomes Wynwood.

(upbeat music) By the fifties things are changing rapidly.

You've got a rising garment district along Fifth Avenue, and it's beginning to fill in a lot of buildings and also build some new buildings, between roughly around 23rd Street and 29th Street.

(upbeat music) - Our family started in the zipper business in Cuba in the 1950s, maybe late forties.

They had the only completely vertical zipper operation in Latin America.

My father in New York was a jeweler, and the Jewish people were originally in jewelry because in Europe, they were not allowed to own property.

They weren't allowed to get into industries.

They were only allowed to get involved in used product.

They could buy and sell used product.

So, they said, okay, I'm gonna get into jewelry.

I'm gonna get into garment manufacturing.

And when they came to New York, that's what they got into.

And "schmatta" in Yiddish means rags.

So they got into the schmatta business.

(singer singing in foreign language) Sophie Horenstein, my aunt, decided that she wanted to go into the sewing business and went to New York to buy machinery.

While in New York, she met a gentleman who says, "You know what you should do?

You should get into the zipper business."

We had these little machines then.

And she said, okay.

So, she bought the machines, took them to Cuba, and started in the zipper business.

Obviously they had to close it.

They didn't have to close it, it was taken away from them.

When she moved to Argentina and was going to move to Israel, but that didn't work out.

Went back to New York, and then finally ended up here in Miami in 1968.

She, her husband, her daughter, and her daughter's husband, her son-in-law, started the company in '68.

(upbeat music) - I am from Cuba, but I was too young, and my mother doesn't want me to have a passport.

I said, well, when I grow more, I'm going to leave here.

I don't want to live in Cuba, with the people there is now.

So, she let me go and then I went to Jamaica.

I was there for a couple of months, and then I came here to Miami, stayed one week, and then I went to New York.

(upbeat music) The problem is that the weather here in Miami is like in Cuba.

New York is very cold.

We came here in 1972, 10 years after.

What she does is this.

(upbeat music) An opening on the side.

But I know her for more than 20 years, yeah?

Mother and Daniel.

Yeah, more than 20 years.

This is Maribel.

She's from Peru.

(upbeat music) This is my fifth package.

I used to have 49 people, on a single needle.

Everyone here has to send money, have to send food, have to send clothes, because they have nothing.

You cannot have a business in Cuba.

(upbeat music) - I was born in Cuba.

I came when I was 12.

I'm Chinese-Cuban.

I graduated from Miami Dade Junior College in 1971.

I was a jewelry engraver.

With that work, I paid for my schooling.

(upbeat music) But at that time, Miami was the third largest manufacturer of clothing in the United States.

It was New York one, California second place, and Miami was third place.

I left for New York before the industry disappeared, because I felt that I wanted to do creative work.

(Julian laughs) Not industrial work.

And so, I left with a designer, a New York designer.

It was a black man named Arthur McGee.

(upbeat music) I've been in New York for 47 years.

I'm retired.

I'm 74 years old, and I'm here to give back.

(upbeat music) - I manage this building we are in now.

It's 3300 Northwest 41st Street.

There is a lot of history here.

My whole family grew up in this garment business.

My grandfather was a tailor from Russia, came over when he was 17.

My grandfather was in the dress business in New York through the forties, fifties.

My father came to Miami in '52 when I was born, worked as a pattern maker, got involved with the business, became the owner of Cover Girl Miami in '54.

And that was Wynwood and that was where it all started.

- I born in Cuba, 1937.

I was raised over there with my family, not my mother, my grandmother.

Then I get married about 18, and then because the guy come in '59, we left.

My husband came in first to Miami and then, he asking for me, and I came in 1961.

Changed to my nice clothes and I put on pull-ons, and I started to learn sewing because I need to work.

We came with only 25 cents in the pocket.

And then I started to, because I like it, I love it.

I like sewing.

I like that.

And I try very hard, even take home some things to do, something at home and then bring back to the place.

At that time, you can have a breakfast in one factory, a lunch in another one if you don't like it.

That was at the time I coming from Cuba, and then I start to learn sections.

Sections means only one thing.

And when you learn that, then you take another one.

And that way, I start to working at a better factory.

One of the better factory was Cover Girl.

- And my father still had the business that was going on, and I thought I might be moving into it, but the best thing that ever happened is he closed up his company, Cover Girl, in '72.

So, I was watching a transition of family business, but then my sister, Cheryl Singer, had an idea of making tennis clothes.

She had made a denim tennis skirt.

It was a recycled denim skirt that had little tennis motifs.

Tennis was in its boom era in '74.

Ed was the dominant player of the tennis industry.

We built on a different denim, sexier, young line, and featured it at a show.

It's called a tennis show on Miami Beach.

We were next to Ed.

We had this unique line.

Went into Bloomingdale's first year, and some special tennis shops.

I don't know, somehow we launched something that attracted people and you know, that was the start of our Tail world.

(upbeat music) After the show and we started making a little production, and we were growing, and we moved into 2630 Northwest Fifth Avenue, had a little factory there, and really operated, growing the business.

While we were in Wynwood, we had a factory on 20th Street, and that's where we just interviewed Florence, and she was a plant manager there.

- [Florence] He's my family.

These are my relations.

I know him from 18 years old, and I love him, the father, the mother, the sister.

We have such a good time all this time.

(upbeat music) - Starting to grow with, you know, the business, and hired some of people that she worked with at Boden.

These were the best people in Miami.

We were making 7,000 units a week.

(upbeat music) - From '60 to '70, most people in Cuba educate, position, teacher.

I had teachers on the factory, pharmaceutical people, doctors.

I had all kind of things and some special people.

I can't tell you all of my time over here, maybe I was lucky.

I have many good people surrounding, and today, when I need help, I'm surrounded with a lot of people, very nice people from Cuba, and from Latin America and Americans.

(upbeat music) - We still have a pretty vibrant garment district here too.

In fact, one of the most famous names, is right over here, Austin Burke.

- Hey, should this be a sport coat?

- [Narrator] Subtle, he wasn't.

Memorable, he was.

Who could watch and not grin at the sight of little old Burkie, as he called himself, stripping off sport coats?

- Moose striped suits, a hundred dollars.

- Austin Burke was a clothier, who opened up on Miami Beach, near Collins Avenue, going way back to the early post World War II period.

Wisely, he moved here, I think in part because, A, rents were more affordable.

He got himself a much bigger space.

But also I-95 for free advertisement.

I-95 started running through here.

You could drive this as early as 1962.

- Berkowitz was shortened to Burke.

Back in Philadelphia where he grew up, that's how he was raised, that's what he knew, for the so-called, schmatta business, in his words.

He moved from Philadelphia for health reasons, and decided to go into business, or open up something here in Miami.

- Everybody in Miami in that era knew him.

I was young then, I knew who he was.

Everybody came to Burkie's to get a discounted coat or a suit or whatever.

It was a men's clothier operation.

- This particular location, I believe, was starting around the mid sixties, late sixties.

- It was something seeing your father on TV, doing these, you know, antics and hollering and screaming, and it was a joy for me as for everybody else.

- [Narrator] Austin Burke was a joy.

Even if he did shout at us, maybe we didn't turn the channel because he really meant it when he said.

- We love you all!

- Wherever he is, I'm sure a little old Burkie is probably dressed in the latest style, including his trademark (indistinct) sweater.

And probably trying to sell St. Peter a new robe.

In the garment district, Michael Putney, News 4.

(somber music) - Well, I came from Lebanon, and I went to my uncle when I was in Lebanon.

I was 13, and he was the best tailor ever in Lebanon.

And I was 14 when I first, my first shoot.

And then, I stay with him till I was 22 years, 1973.

(somber music) I knew the wars is coming.

So, I said to my cousin, "If we are staying over here, we're gonna die or we're gonna go to war.

You want to go with me, you know, to America?"

He said, "How?"

I told him, "I know a girl and her sister.

They are my neighbor."

I talked to her father.

I told them, "Listen, we're gonna go to America and your kids, they have American paper.

Can we marry them?"

(bright music) I was 21, I got married.

The girl, she's so beautiful.

And we've been married right now, 50 years.

We came to the United States, 1973.

First thing, I start in MY company with Johnny Carson shoes.

I used to make him, me and my cousin.

Then my wife, she gets sick.

I have to move from cold weather, to a little bit hot weather.

My brother told me he was here in the University of Miami.

So, we move and we live till now in Miami.

(bright music) So, God sent me to Albert from Israel.

He knew about me and he called me and he said, "I have a shop.

I wanna sell it."

I asked him, "What do you want from me?"

He said, "I'm gonna give you my shop."

I told him, "I don't have any penny and $75,000 is a lot of money.

I could give you 10,000 or $15,000, but no money in my pocket".

He said, "John, I love you.

You are a good man, you are a good tailor."

I'll never forget those days.

Then, God opened the door for me.

He told me, John, this is the key.

I'm gonna give you the shop by 15,000.

You send me the money to Israel.

I told him, okay, I will do anything for you.

You saved my life.

(bright music) Then I brought my family from Lebanon, 12 of them.

We lost everything in Lebanon, everything.

Whatever work, we don't have anything anymore.

They took our land, they took our home, they took our bed, they took our floor, they took off our floor from our apartment.

(bright music) God sent us to America.

America is my life.

(machine rumbling) - No, no, no, they don't gotta wait.

- A woman by the name of Doree Fromberg, was a great designer of young people's, especially women's, young people's, casual wear, beach wear, what have you.

She outgrew her space in what was then called Riverside, be today's East Little Havana, and moved over here into this great building.

We're talking now the 1960s, 1970s.

Full disclosure, Dorissa lived across the street from me when I was a teenager.

Directly, not directly, one door over across the street.

She was a very intense, very attractive Jewish woman from New York.

Married to a gentleman, I think it was her second husband, who had a degree, I think a master's in business from Harvard.

And they were a team.

And she was in this space for a long period of time, before she sold the business.

But one of the stipulations was, that the building would have to carry the name of her business, I guess, for eternity.

So you've got Dorissa Miami up here.

(dramatic music) - [Reporter] Once a neighborhood, now a war zone.

Each boundary is marked by barricades and rifle bearing national guardsmen and the charred remains of cars, factories, and storefronts stand testimony to the evening's anger and the rioters defiance.

- The riots happened.

But my father always had a very good relationship with the neighborhood.

One gentleman that was pardoned, Freddie Lee Pitts, he had him come in.

We clothed him.

We did a lot with, for the, some of the high schools, for the church communities.

He was very big and well known.

In that aspect, we felt kind of safe, you know?

I mean the name on the building, Austin Burke, you know, it had some pull.

- [Reporter] Today, property damage, even by the most conservative estimates, has already soared into the millions of dollars, and those figures are expected to climb as the looting continues and the buildings smolder.

(somber music) - 1980, I was living on Biscayne Boulevard.

I remember seeing tanks go down Fifth Avenue.

I remember, yeah, you know, my uncle came down from New York, he was in the industry, he got in the wrong street, and they flipped his car over.

He was all right.

So there was some pretty crazy times and that's when we moved out of the neighborhood in the eighties.

Yeah, 1980 actually.

(somber music) - Miami absorbed 600,000 Cubans.

And every student of the matter, whether it be the University of Miami or FIU or whoever that has looked at the figures, concludes that there has been a net economic benefit to the community.

In other words, that the Cubans have not taken from the public coffers, but have on the contrary, rendered taxes to us.

So I think that's one side of it.

The other side of it is the Statute of Liberty.

You know, very clear about, about the emotional aspects of it.

That we welcome people and I think that's an American tradition.

- Thank you very much, Miami mayor, Maurice Ferre.

- I'm originally from Cuba, and I came in the early eighties when I was still in my teens.

I applied to Miami-Dade College because I wanted to be an architect, but things were difficult for me being here by myself and not having like immediate family.

I used to live with aunts and, you know, family because my mother had stayed behind in Cuba.

Never thought that I was gonna be a fashion designer.

But I, when I found that school, the International Fine Art of College of Miami, it was just amazing.

They taught us how to make patterns, how to design.

They had a history of art, costume history.

It was just really an amazing environment.

- I found a love of fashion and fabric and color and texture, probably in my house, probably looking at my mom.

And she was a home sewer, like most women back then.

But she used to sew just for herself, for her spiritual pleasure.

She was always looking for the best and unusual texture to do something different.

Definitely that's where my interest started.

I move on to New York in the early eighties.

I went to school at Parsons, and I graduated back in 1986.

I had the fortune to get to know some of the most legendary names back in the day of American fashion, Oscar de la Renta, Louis Dell'Olio for Anne Klein, which was a big, big, big business back then.

Donna Karan, Calvin Klein, Donald Brooks.

- When we were in school, there was still factories in Miami, places that you could actually go and get a paying internship because there was enough work and turnaround that people, you could just start in one of those factories in Wynwood and (indistinct), what is today in Hialeah.

That you could just start picking up pins from the floor.

(upbeat music) We used to have pattern makers and cutters, and that's how I got my start.

That's how I've been able to survive in South Florida, in a business as challenging as the fashion industry is and has become.

- Back then, it was very difficult.

Fashion wasn't as global as it is right now.

We had no social media.

We only had what we read in the magazines, and that was about it.

- Other places that we used to get all the notions and things, that was Scott Notions, was Marita Srebnick.

They used to supply all the zippers and threads and elastic bands.

She would refer us to like places that sold the sewing machines.

And then from there, you will go to the factories and there were so many, like the one that I worked for, Artie Apparel.

They used to specialize in making three piece women linen suits with a lot of embroidery.

And they used to sell to the Southeast and the Caribbean.

(upbeat music) Those days, I was the assistant designer.

For me, it was basically doing everything that the designer would do.

Research and trends and fabrics and sources.

That was very important because in those days, there was no internet.

So we had to call companies, go to fabric shows in New York or in the marts here in Miami.

And you had salespeople coming and showing you the collection.

So for me, was to source fabrics and also edit the collection for the designer to create the line.

- I think we peaked out in the nineties with 200 employees, a hundred in the factory, a hundred here.

We had a separate building for fabric and cutting.

We had an auxiliary warehouse for what we call our core fabric.

And we were in our peak, 200 employees, close to $30 million volume.

This was a great labor market for manufacturing.

Cubans came in the fifties, worked with factories, the industry was here.

It evolved into Hialeah with tons of sewing manufacturers, cutters, suppliers.

- When my cousin first moved to Miami, they went to a synagogue and the rabbi said, "What business are you in?"

He said, "Well, we make zippers."

He says, "How much is a zipper?"

And I said, "4 cents, 5 cents."

"How do you make a living?"

And he says, "We sell a lot of zippers."

So that was their demographic was large, larger clothing manufacturers.

(gentle music) Manufacturing started changing.

The United States started trying to give preference to countries in Central and South America, Central America and Latin America.

The sewing operations moved offshore, so the business started shrinking.

It was a big change.

- It changed when Clinton was president.

It started to change.

That's when I noticed that.

- The 807 was where you could sew offshore using American components and if the product was cut here initially.

And then the product would be sewn offshore and brought back in.

Then it started changing where it could be cut offshore also, because those countries obviously had a lot of labor.

Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, they had a lot of manufacturing.

Guatemala and El Salvador had a lot of manufacturing.

I mean, they had factories that had 2000, 3000 operators.

- So then labor starting to be a dying trade for operators.

I think people realized that there, that was going on.

There was still an industry here.

I think, you know, besides the combination of the labor drying up and the politics, it was probably half the price to sew it in that region.

And it was duty free coming back here.

So there was a big incentive, and it brought a lot of manufacturing to Miami, but not the manufacturing part, more the cutting and distribution.

So I'd say that would be how the 807 impacted and labor was starting to dry up.

Next generation didn't wanna be sewers.

And you know, we were counting on South America, which a lot of people did.

The 807 project were, of course, importing from China, India, far East.

- Most of the production in Miami was for major storage.

JC Penney in Montgomery Ward, Sears, Petris.

That eventually was taken away to, you know, Cambodia, India, Vietnam, Pakistan, where they do it for a lot less money.

The industry disappeared.

- It got worse because then the cutting rooms were able to leave.

That certainly was a disadvantage because they didn't have to ship anything to those countries, where we could piggyback and send components.

So now really everything was being procured in the country where it was being manufactured.

- There was a very powerful ladies garment workers union in New York, but that was more like a national thing.

It didn't reach out to here.

What happened here is that interest diminished into the Miami made things.

Younger generations of these families weren't interested in their parents' businesses at all.

And they went on to pursue another, other interest, and China came along the way.

- The people that have a lot of work, they moved to China, different places, but mostly to China.

And then many people has to close because they have no work.

I still have work because I give quality, and they like that.

They know me.

(gentle music) - And it was a slow attrition.

It took a while.

Our zipper manufacturing facility where we had maybe 12 people, 14 people working in the zipper manufacturing, shrank and shrank and shrank, where we needed less and less people because we obviously had less and less customers in this area.

When there's manufacturing in those places, it's more advantageous for them to source in those places.

(upbeat music) - I started my business basically by accident.

I was working for that company, Artie Apparel.

I went on holiday to Europe and when I got back, they have moved the operations to China.

So I found myself without a job.

A lot of those factories disappear.

And it was relatively happened overnight, like in the span of a couple of years, there was no factories.

I mean, it became a ghost town.

♪ I've got the power ♪ - [Reporter 2] A Gianni Versace design is known to be a work of art and his couture collection comes with an art gallery price tag.

Now, Versace has taken his art inspired creations to the world of real estate with his newest and grandest purchase yet.

He bought this former apartment house and the old Revere Hotel next to it in 1992 for a little under $7 million for both buildings.

- Versace was a major force in making Miami fashionable again.

It's terrible to say, but Miami Beach, South Beach was a dump in the early nineties, late eighties.

So Miami came back into fashion.

- Versace actually discovered South Beach a couple of years ago when he was on vacation.

He saw the beautiful architecture and the weather and said, "I have to have a house here.

I have to have this house."

- The place, the people, everything to me looks very cool and very happy, very easy.

No pretention.

- Productions came, magazines did layouts.

They brought in photographers, models.

So it became a sort of place to be again, back in the early, I would say like '92, '93, all through the nineties.

- [Reporter 2] And even though Mr. Versace owns homes all over the world, he says it's his South Florida home that inspires him to create.

- Yeah, I work a lot here and it's the weather is spectacular, and I live very well, very relaxed, and it's the best way to work.

(upbeat music) - I knew people and people knew me because I've always, for some reason this guy from Hialeah ended up attending events and meeting people and kind of society.

So some of the women started approaching me, and I started designing clothes for a private clientele.

I started out of my apartment and basically, I used to go to their homes and fit them, and it was like couture in my car.

In those days, we had Bal Harbor Shops and we had Mayfair shops, and they had amazing designers that they were stores like Romanov and Andreas and things like that, that were bringing great designers from Europe.

And I think that was a great learning experience for me.

And then I was lucky enough one day that I was in Bal Harbor shops, waiting to get my hair cut, and Mary Anne Shula was getting her hair done.

She asked me what I was doing.

I was just graduating probably I was just starting, you know, maybe I was trying to start my business.

And she asked me to design a dress for her first day with a secret person that no one knew who he was.

And she was beautiful.

And she reminded me of Elizabeth Taylor, and I designed an emerald green cocktail dress for her first date with Don Shula.

And in those days, she was still Mary Anne Steven, and she used to live in Indian Creek.

So she became like my first real client.

Imagine a boy from Hialeah entering into a whole different world.

I made a wardrobe for her, a summer wardrobe and a winter wardrobe.

And I did the dress that she married Don Shula in.

(dramatic music) - You certainly read all about it in your morning newspaper here in South Florida.

The murder on Ocean Drive dominated the front pages of the press.

And we have gathered more examples for you.

The main newspaper in Milan, the city where the Versace empire is based, has extensive coverage.

Carrera de la Sela on page one has a photo, the exclusive photo of the video taken yesterday by Eyewitness News photojournalist Mario Hernandez.

It shows paramedics working frantically on the blood soaked Versace as he arrived at Jackson Memorial Hospital.

We noted in several of the papers we looked at also features Mario's photograph and also this newspaper has a cartoon-like drawing of the timeline of the shooting, noting the new cafe, Versace going to the gate of his house, and the gunman shooting.

It also shows the house of Versace on Ocean Drive.

Now there are international publications like the Daily Mail, which asks, "Did the Mafia Kill Versace?"

And it also shows the designer with the (indistinct) at his Paris show.

And that picture was taken just last week.

The Financial Times also has front page coverage of the murder, as does the International Herald Tribune also.

All these publications saying it is a blow to the fashion empire.

And they even quote, Dayton Mayor Alex Pinellas, who called the murder an extraordinary occurrence.

(gentle music) - When it comes to actually sewing in Miami, like a fashion industry in Miami, it's just in the early 2000s, is that when, you know, people started again, you know, because it's hard, it's difficult, it's hard to hire talent.

Where are you gonna have a good pattern maker, for example, which is essential in creating a line?

Where are you gonna have a good cutter or a contractor, you know, who holds the workforce, who knows where the seamstresses are, who can do, handle production for you?

None of those things are common here.

It's very difficult to come by.

- When I open my big shop, they start, you know, some tailors, they start coming in out of my shop.

They need some work, some job.

And I put, you know, some advertising.

I need somebody to make custom-made, you know, jacket and pants.

So one guy, he make the pants.

He stay with me 25 years, and I have five tailors, you know, they making my suits.

I was having 23 tailors with me, and I open, you know, three shops.

But in the end, I told you I close 'em because I have some bad situation with them.

The stealing, and they don't wanna open the shop and they don't give a damn.

So I closed everything.

(somber music, machine clicks) - I had capacity to make 20,000 zippers a day.

Different types of zippers, of course, even then.

But before that, it was a lot more.

I have a customer that makes doggy beds.

They make doggy beds, and they buy 3000 zippers a week from me that are like 144 inches long.

So who would've expected something like that, to have customers that make mattress covers?

I thought years ago, that the business would disappear and it hasn't.

It's still there.

Certainly, on a reduced basis, but it's still there.

And there are other people coming along, new people coming along.

- Hi, my name's Ashley Liemer.

Welcome to Tailor House.

(upbeat music) We've evolved into being a boutique creative company that focuses in garment production and manufacturing for hospitality.

However, for me, the heart of house is the tailor shop.

(upbeat music) By the time I was 24, I created my own company.

I was working for Mika in New York, and she was asked to be the designer behind the scenes of a spinoff show from "Project Runway" called "On the Road with Austin and Santino."

And that meant she was gonna be filming for three to five months on the road.

And so I needed to be in Miami, looking for a way to continue working on my skills.

And so I started responding to a bunch of different random Craigslist ads.

And then one day, there was an ad, "Urgent, tailor passed away," and I responded to the ad, and it was at Mark's Dry Cleaners in the iconic drive through building on 23rd and Alton Road.

And I went and I responded to the ad and the owners looked at me, said, "You're hired, start tomorrow."

- I opened my first studio in 1994, 1993.

1993, '94.

I remember because in that year, I was commissioned by Absolut Vodka.

And in those days, it was a big deal to be in an Absolut ad, and that was a big moment for me.

(upbeat music) I had a third store, and I had a fourth store that I owned the building.

I was a rarity for Miami, especially during that time, because I was able to even open a factory and employ, at one point, about 60 people.

During the nineties, I even got the key of the city of Miami by Mayor Jimenez.

That was pretty amazing.

Not that I want to talk about my own business, but it's a business that I created, that's still relevant today.

- So these are all of patterns of different projects we've worked with from Shinola Hotel in Detroit to Soho House to Bright Line Trains, are a few of our favorite projects.

So Mark's Dry Cleaners was really a busy place.

The turnaround was two weeks, and the tailor had passed away.

So there were stacks of clothes up to the ceiling that had to be worked on.

And I started doing what I could, fixing holes, doing hems, whatever I could do on my own.

But then I would stockpile bags of work that I didn't know how to do.

And on Sundays, I would load up my trunk of my car and on Monday, it was my day off, and I would drive it to Fort Lauderdale to Las Olas, where two older Italian tailors would teach me step by step how to do the work.

And this went on for probably about six months, until I became proficient in the art of tailoring.

- You could afford to train people because you had enough work that you could take the time and spend the money and invest into training the new workforce.

My aunt came from Cuba in 1959, 1960, and she always worked in a factory.

She worked in a factory in New York, and she worked in a factory in Hialeah.

She was able to buy her house in Hialeah.

She was able to raise her family in Hialeah, and she was nothing more than a factory worker, making clothes for a company.

(upbeat music) - Rosa and Tiffany, we've worked together the past, well, since the beginning we've been together.

We're all growing up together.

Tiff, you wanna say hi?

(Ashley laughs) I got a call from the Chamber of Commerce.

Said they had a woman who had just arrived from Cuba, looking for work, who had sewing skills, and if I was interested in hiring.

And at this point, I approached Ellen and Mark, the owner, the original owners of Mark's Cleaners.

And I said, look, this has been great, but I'm really not intending to be a tailor a seamstress in your dry cleaner.

I want a brand.

I want a company.

You have all this extra space.

Can I use this space and build my business out of your space?

And they said, that's a fantastic idea.

You can do it.

And I said, great, I'm gonna start hiring my own team.

I'm going to recreate the front, and make it into my own little shop, and the back will be the workshop.

(upbeat music) The woman who came in to interview was Rosa, who still is with me today.

And we've been together almost 15 years.

And at the time, Tiffany was in high school.

We've grown up together at this point.

And so this concept started inside a dry cleaner, and it's evolved over the years to something much greater.

(gentle music) Most of my factories are immigrant.

Yeah, they're all immigrants.

So there's one factory, it's a mother and daughter, they're from Columbia.

My button hole woman, Yolanda, she's also from the fifties.

She's been making button holes in Miami since she came from Cuba, and she's still doing it.

She works out of her apartment.

Her husband's passed away, and her whole living room is button hole machines.

And all the factories bring the work to her because she's the only gal in town, and not all the factories have button machines 'cause they're expensive, or they're used to Yolanda doing it.

And (Ashley laughs).

It's really amazing.

And she calls me, "mi nina."

I'm like her granddaughter.

And I love going and visiting her, and I am trying to hold onto these moments of these relationships I've formed the past 15 years because I see them fleeting.

I see my girls getting older and the times are changing and sometimes I get back to the shop and I'm to my manager, Tiffany, I'm like, woo, I don't know how much longer we have here.

We gotta come up with plan B because they're getting old.

But I love them.

We're gotta keep giving them the work.

(gentle music) (foreign language) - '66.

- '66.

- [Interviewer] 1966.

(foreign language) - Oh yes, if she doesn't love America, she cannot work for me.

No, no, no.

- This is my town, this is my country.

My country is America.

Second country is Lebanon.

It is my home country, Lebanon.

But this is, America is my life.

They gave me everything.

(gentle music) - My partner, Kenny, he started when he was 25.

Miguel's been here 40 something years.

Felicia, the cashier, she's been here about that same amount of time.

Had some tailors upstairs that have been here for a very long time also.

This is kind of a tailoring, you know, it's kind of a dying art.

(gentle music) - We haven't talked about Lucky in Love, which is you're looking at, that's our next generation.

That's my nephew, and my sister's son, Brad, who founded the company 12 years ago.

It kind of picked up where Tail left off, like I say, 12 years ago.

They work with modern ways of doing business today.

They're working with American textiles, taking advantage of the trade agreements, KAFTA basically, and they buy fabric from California.

They ship it right to El Salvador.

We've developed a factory for 200 people there, and they're making product that we're selling now under Lucky in Love.

It's tennis, golf, very labor intensive, challenging kind of work, engineered printing.

To me, I don't know how they do it, but they do it.

(bright music) - Then our neighborhood in Wynwood started changing to the extent that 2018, we moved out of Wynwood and moved to Hialeah.

It's a business that Andy will tell you, gets in your blood.

It's like a virus.

And many of the people that we know that have been in this business for a long time, can't think of doing anything else.

So I guess that's me.

Can't think of doing anything else.

That's why we keep, I keep reinventing.

- Although there are lots of changes, and technology has played a big part in the growing of fashion, fashion still remains very much a manual business.

We need somebody, a woman or a man, and painfully in some countries, a child, to sit down in front of a sewing machine and assemble all these pieces together.

So it remains very much a manual business.

So the importance of teaching pattern making, of teaching collections, of teaching, of instructing a student about all the fundamentals of fashion.

You know, from color, texture, lines, silhouette, reference, to the fact that you have to learn how to make your own clothes because eventually, you'll have people working with you or for you, who's gonna be doing the sewing.

But you have to know and understand what's happening there.

It's important in the formation of new talents.

- My passion is over here in United States.

I lost a country because a country gave me a hand from my problem.

And I have my two sons born over here and God always help me and the people around me, okay?

My definition is I'm very proud.

To this country, I say thank you, thank you, thank you.

(gentle music) - [Narrator] Funding for this program is brought to you in part by the Florida Division of Historical Resources, Florida Division of Arts and Culture, Community Foundation of Broward and the Broward Cultural Division.