Fixins Soul Kitchen, a downtown Detroit restaurant founded by former NBA All-Star Kevin Johnson, has announced a partnership with Pensole Lewis College of Business and Design (PLC).
The HBCU partnership will allow Fixins employees to receive new uniforms quarterly. Each uniform will be crafted by a different student designer attending PLC.
The first uniforms, designed by PLC student Jordan Dixon, carry two distinct themes. One features local music legend J Dilla, who represents Detroit’s east side. Other uniforms were designed to honor the west side.
“It’s honestly astonishing to be able to do this…I wanted to create basically an east side and west side unity,” Dixon said.
PLC President Dr. D’Wayne Edwards, a veteran of Nike’s Jordan Brand, spoke about the opportunity to collaborate with local small businesses and expand the scope of student education.
“Good design, you don’t recognize all of it at first glance, you need to actually look deeper, and discover more and more things that you missed, and I knew that’s how he designs, that’s how we teach,” Edwards told WXYZ Detroit. “I knew by him going first, it would set the tone for the storytelling we want.”
While the announcement centers on fresh uniforms, the project’s meaning runs deeper. For PLC, the country’s only HBCU devoted to design, the partnership gives students direct exposure to professional branding work. For Detroit, it’s a reminder that creative energy is not confined to galleries or runways. The opportunity to excel in one’s craft can be embedded into everyday spaces like Fixin.
Johnson is giving students the chance to reinterpret uniforms as both style and storytelling. The collaboration turns workwear into a rotating canvas that tells Detroit’s story every season. while creating career-launching opportunities for young designers eager to have their ideas come alive in public.
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