When Dijana and Nikola Bucalo and their 8-year-old daughter, Minja, first stepped onto Detroit turf in 1996, they had no idea what type of life was
in store for them. They did know that they needed to get away from their home country, war-torn Bosnia-Herzegovina.
“We didn’t see a future there,” Dijana Bucalo says. She joined hundreds of thousands (including her parents, who moved to Texas and then Hamtramck) who fled the Western Balkan country to escape uncertainty.
Clasping just two bags full of clothes, some items for Minja, and $100, the Bucalos first settled in Hamtramck in an apartment with family who had just moved there and had been told it was a good place to start a new life.
Given her extraordinary sewing skills, it wasn’t long before Bucalo turned to seamstress work to make ends meet.
“I grew up making things. That’s what you did in southeast Europe,” Bucalo says. “Your relatives, your mom, you just sat around every afternoon doing some type of handiwork.”
Over time, she learned English. “Those days were tough. Not only did we not have extra money to do anything with, but we didn’t even know where to buy thread, let alone fabric.”
During her time working in Midtown Detroit at the International Institute of Metro Detroit, a great deal of her work involved creating performance costumes for Irish dancers, circus performers, acrobats, folk dancers, and others. “The demand for the performing community was really big then,” she says.
She also whipped up custom apparel and, in time, designed her own line
of dresses and tops under her Dijana Bucalo label. Her client base grew, and it was apparent she’d need to learn more about running a small business, so she took business classes at ACCESS (the nonprofit Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services).
In 2013, the couple moved to a charming two-story home in Royal Oak. The following year, Bucalo won the NEIdeas $10K Challenge presented by the New Economy Initiative. Part of that program included her teaching people how to use commercial sewing machines and how to become professional sewers.
Nikola, an electrician who’s extremely handy, built, with the help of a friend, a home studio for his wife behind their house, and Minja — who has a master’s degree in interior design — did the design work.
Today, Dijana Design Studio is a modern, professional facility with sewing machines; dress forms; racks of stylish, cutting-edge apparel; and more.
Beyond costume creations, Bucalo has medical-industry clients, for example, for whom she creates colostomy waistband accessories and interior designers who call on her for decorative pieces like high- end accent pillows and table linens.
Bucalo’s favorite fabrics are of natural fibers, like cotton, linen, and silk. She has a passion for asymmetrical cuts and loves working with whites, blacks, and grays and very bright yellows, blues, reds, and greens. “I don’t like muted colors.”
Though she admits that her designs aren’t for everyone, Bucalo has gained quite a following. In fact, sometimes when people visit her studio, they’ll see a fabric and, not sure what she’ll do with it, say they want whatever she makes from it. “My designs can be quirky and different, but each has my soul in it.”
This story originally appeared in the November 2024 issue of Hour Detroit magazine. To read more, pick up a copy of Hour Detroit at a local retail outlet. Our digital edition will be available on Nov. 6.
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