“You usually don’t have any eighteen-year-olds who own their own store, so it is pretty unique,” admits Montrez Root. Root opened Living Lavish Clothing in February in the former Swarovski near the center court of Briarwood Mall.
The store carries “everything from athletic to urban,” Root says: “pants, hats, shirts, hoodies, windbreakers, pullovers, men’s and women’s and kids’,” some from national brands, others from his own Living Lavish label.
It’s fast fashion, with new merchandise arriving every two weeks. But while Root stresses the quality of the material, it’s not too expensive: “I want you to be able to pay thirty dollars or forty dollars for a shirt,” he says.
Now nineteen, Root notes that Living Lavish is actually his second business. The first was a smoothie business he ran out of Ypsilanti Community High School, donating 11 percent of sales back to the school’s athletic department.
He got into clothing when he was sixteen, designing his own logo, putting it on T-shirts and selling them to classmates. From there, he says, “it kind of just skyrocketed.”
He opened at Briarwood fresh out of high school, combining his savings with those of his best friend, Jacob Muhammad, who’s a partner in the store.
Root, whose braces are one of the only reminders of his age, says his backup plan if the store doesn’t succeed is becoming a police officer. But Living Lavish is doing so well, he says, that Twelve Oaks mall in Novi wants him to open a second location there.
He credits his early success to perseverance and the ability to listen: “It takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of saving. It takes a lot of commitment. It takes a lot of hard work.” Root, who regularly puts in seventy-hour weeks, rejects the stereotype of the idle, phone-addicted millennial: “At a bonfire, I’m the type to listen to all the older people talking. I might be doodling, I might be on my phone, but I’m listening.”
Root’s outlook and measured attitude are partially due to past hardships. “A lot of kids grow up with a mom and a dad,” he says. “I only grew up with a mom.” In his last years of high school, she was sick, and between work and helping her out, he didn’t graduate. “It could be difficult,” he says. “But I don’t want no one to put their head down and feel sorry for me … I want someone to say ‘Hey, keep going,’ you know?”
His ultimate dream is to own twenty-five Living Lavish stores, plus a nightclub, before he turns thirty. With his progress so far, it doesn’t sound so far-fetched.
Living Lavish (Briarwood mall). (734) 730-5438. Mon.-Sat. 10 a.m.-9 p.m., Sun. 11 a.m.-6 p.m. livinglavishclothing.com
