Montee Holland always wanted to be well dressed.

He wanted it so badly that he made it a priority everywhere he went. At Cody High School in Detroit, he’d take note of his administrators and coaches who never showed up to school wearing anything less than their best. In the Marines, he used his station in Japan to seek out new fabrics and patterns, designing his own suits at pop-up shops in the Southeast Asian countries he visited.

He wanted it so badly that he left his high-paying pharmaceuticals job to start his own fashion line, to finally take his talent of dressing himself and others and transform it into something bigger.

Holland, now 50, has grown that line into Tayion, a fashion suit company with a storefront in Taylor, Michigan, and deals in the works with multiple big box stores. A Detroit-born and -raised entrepreneur, Holland’s been building his business for a little more than 15 years, creating a dedicated base of customers that range from Detroit fans to mega-pastors and athletes.

“Cody, Marine Corps, Detroit, all those things, you know, put that Kevlar around me — I knew that failure wasn't an option," Holland said. "Detroit is just a strong city and I bleed Detroit.”

Last month, Tayion won Best in Show at MAGIC Las Vegas, a biannual fashion convention that showcases some of the industry's best. The award was a triumph for Holland not just because he'd topped stiff competition, but because MAGIC was where he got his fashion start.

Lifetime of fashion curiosity

"His due diligence and all has just been so incredible," said Deborah Haessig, MAGIC's sales director. "He's just a delight. So when he finally got back into the show on his own, creating what he's been working on so hard all these years and doing it his way and finally making it his way, it was just the best. And it just touched me to the core."

Holland didn’t have any design or manufacturing connections when he first attended MAGIC in the early 2000s. He did have a lifetime of fashion curiosity and a little collection of suits, and on his third MAGIC visit, he had his own booth, showcasing a few straightforward suits.

“I had no idea how to price it wholesale. I didn't know what would happen,” Holland said. “If it was black, it was black, that was it. I didn't have any samples to maximize my economies of scale — I just had what I had.”

Regardless, Holland was effective — Tayion was a hit with several stores that put in purchase orders for its stock on the spot. He didn't have many suits, but the ones he'd made used quality fabrics and patterns other designers didn't have.

Steve Harvey becomes a fan

The tiny clothing line was also a hit with Steve Harvey. The TV personality, who happened to be at MAGIC promoting his own suits, liked what he saw from Holland. Within a few months, Harvey had connected Holland with the resources he needed to get started in the industry, including access to licensing and a way to create and deliver a product people already wanted.

While he hasn’t worked with Harvey for several years, the connections Harvey helped him make got Holland into stores nationwide, where his product began selling out to high-end customers.

“(Stores) had these traditionally custom type of guys — wealthy celebrities, wealthy pastors, wealthy guys, movie stars — walking into stores buying this Tayion garment because they had never seen these types of designs before,” Holland said.

Customers were buying Holland’s suits at designer prices. But then the rip-offs started. Holland started finding cheaper, more poorly made versions of his product at MAGIC shows, and decided he'd continue to one-up the competition.

“After I got over being upset, I decided, ‘OK, well I can learn — Why don't we knock ourselves off, you know, with a fusion line?’” Holland said. “... So we came back and we came out with T Fusion — same types of styles with much more affordable fabrics — and that's when it exploded.”

Holland got a deal with K&G Fashion Superstore, expanding his national reach as he started taking over the business aspects of Tayion.

It was a lot for a Detroiter with lots of life experience but little business know-how. Holland learned on the fly about licensing his own work and finding manufacturers— he’s spent the last eight or nine years teaching himself how to run a company, he said.

Traveling the world

“It's been a whirlwind,” Holland said. “Once I started to learn the industry, I understood that you can design the hottest pieces on earth — until you understand the business side of it, you're going to always be spinning your wheels.”

Part of Holland’s success, he and his associates say, has been in his ability to build relationships across the industry. As he started working without Harvey, Holland made it a point to travel across the world to find and meet the best manufacturers (he now works with an establishment in Turkey).

While he’s succeeded in getting his work into bigger stores, he hasn’t forgotten the smaller retailers he started with.

“I am 100% my customer,” Holland said. “I wear it every single day and I get the feedback because I do something different from a Calvin Klein and or a Tommy Hilfiger — I go into stores every day.”

Holland’s care for business relationships extends to his personal relationships, his lifelong friend Ken Sangster said. Sangster, a security engineer at Ford, has known Holland since the two were in sixth grade, and said his longtime friend continues to seek his advice and input on Tayion products.

Holland also uses his time outside Tayion to coach young athletes and help them access scholarships and sports camps, Sangster said.

“Montee is very compassionate,” said Sangster. “He's a very compassionate and driven individual...his biggest thing is helping people.”

Bob Saboo runs the City Warehouse in Southfield, where he’s sold Tayion products for years. Saboo took Holland to his first MAGIC show in the early 2000s and watched him grow his brand.

Holland’s personal touch in keeping close to retailers like Saboo means he has reliable associates everywhere, but also helps him understand who he’s selling to. At one point, when Holland took a break from distribution, Saboo said his customers were coming in to ask where the Tayion suits were. They’d grown to know the name, and they wanted more.

“I have maybe like a handful of customers that just wait for his brand to come out, and as soon as it does, they pick it up,” Saboo said. “He has ... a great eye on fashion.”

Honoring his Detroit roots

Part of the Tayion appeal, Saboo said, is Montee’s Detroit roots. When he first started Tayion, he released a line of suits named for Detroit public high schools. Saboo went to a DPS high school, he said; of course, he and many others wanted a suit named for something they knew and loved.

It’s not just Holland’s work ethic or suit names that are Detroit-born — even his style reflects a little of the fashion his city was once known for. He’s inspired by Motown’s timeless looks, by the way blue- and white-collar men used to dress up even outside work.

“When I was growing up as a kid, everyone still wore suits — my grandfather wore suits, my uncle wore suits — and it was still kind of a thing, right?” Sangster said. “It's like a Detroit thing where hats are big and guys are dressing very, very well from head to toe … and I understood it and so when Montee really embraced it, it was not, it was not like ‘what's wrong?’ It was more like, ‘Oh, that makes sense.’”

Holland also has a bigger vision for Detroit’s fashion future, he said, one that starts with bringing warehouses to the city. Detroit is already an auto hub — why couldn’t the manufacturing and distribution lines that work for the auto industry also work for the fashion industry?

"Detroit is super fashionable, and it's a sexy city, so we need to have things like warehousing here," Holland said.

But first, his own business.

Tayion has grown a lot in the last few years, but right now, Holland just has six employees: two of his nieces, an additional intern, and three sales representatives. He wants up to 15 people by this time next year.

He’s already secured a significant line of credit, and hopes to become a vendor with the department store giant. Macy's also selected Holland as one of a few entrepreneurs to attend a business leadership workshop.

Holland isn't satisfied — he wants to grow, and he'll take the time and persistence he needs to do so.

"I'll tell guys all the time, 'listen, if you work hard, you learn your business, you're passionate about it, you're honest, good things will happen,'" Holland said. "You just have to stick to it."