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B I R M I N G H A M
28 | OCTOBER 10 • 2024 J
N
T
here’s a storefront called
Step & Style at the Lincoln
Shopping Center in Oak
Park that’s currently run by three
friends, offering three different
types of products.
All the store owners are busy
young mothers and would not
be able to keep up with working
behind a counter full time. Instead,
they have a rotation system so that
they each run the entire store for
about one and a half days per week.
“We divide up the hours and
completely cover for each other; we
trust each other completely,” said
Sora Chana Aboud of Southfield.
“We were all friends before but
we’re more like sisters now! There’s
this vibe of ‘your kids are my kids,’
we’re always arranging who’s going
to be in the store and who’s going
to be picking up whose kids! I’m
really lucky; it’s an amazing setup,
and I couldn’t do it without them.”
On one memorable occasion,
though, the other women were
unavailable — one had a wedding,
another had a funeral — and
Aboud had a longstanding dentist
appointment that she couldn’t
cancel.
“That was the only time we were
really floundering,” Aboud said. “In
the end, I asked a friend to come in
for half an hour to man the store.
She greeted the customers with, ‘I
can’t really help you but how can I
help you?’”
Aboud wasn’t always a store-
owner. She moved here with her
family from Brooklyn, New York,
in 2008, and kept hearing other
mothers complain that local stores
didn’t offer cute matching clothes
for their kids.
“Online shopping wasn’t what it
is now and, at the time, I thought,
this is crazy. Detroit’s a growing
community. We should have
whatever a person could possibly
want here!” Aboud said.
She decided to open a clothing
store for kids in her basement. A
few times a year, Aboud attends
shows around the country to
discover new styles of kids’ clothing
and brings these outfits to Detroit
for her customers.
“I’m always trying to have in
mind different fits, styles, body
types, everything,” Aboud added.
“It’s tricky because you can’t always
tell how an outfit is going to fit or
look until you actually try it on,
but I still try and get good, cost-
effective, stylish, modest clothing
for the community that I think
people will like.”
For years, Aboud sold this
clothing out of her basement at
set times in the evenings, but that
came with some awkwardness,
such as customers turning up
outside store hours or feeling
uncomfortable when her kids came
out of bed.
Eventually, Aboud connected
to other friends who also had
home-based businesses and after
commiserating with the difficulties
of maintaining healthy boundaries,
they decided to pool their resources
and rent a storefront together.
THREE (NOW FOUR)
STORES IN ONE
In 2015, Step & Style opened with
a combination of three stores in
one: Aboud’s Fit For a Kid, which
sells kids’ clothes up until size
20 as well as yarmulkes, belts
and other accessories; The Shell
Shoppe by Sori Loketch, which
sells long-sleeved undershirts, slips
and jewelery; and Shoe-B-Doo
by Shaindy Pollack, which sells
children’s shoes. In May, Shoe-B-
Doo left Step & Style; another kids’
shoe store will be opening there
Find kids’ clothes
up to size 20 at
Fit for a Kid.
Step & Style houses four businesses started
by busy young moms who share the workload.
Four Shops in One
ROCHEL BURSTYN CONTRIBUTING WRITER
You can find an
array of home
goods at Potpourri
by Chaya Bakst.