"Hit New Orleans, bitches showing tits, throwing Mardi / They can tell I'm from Detroit by the diamonds in the Cardi."
—"Heartbreaker" by HBKThe night I meet them, the guys from Doughboyz Cashout have gathered in the lobby of the Westin in Southfield to meet Spencer Shapiro, a 24-year-old Cartier aficionado and the group's de facto eyewear dealer. The Detroit native calls himself a "board-certified Cartiologist." Since middle school, he's bought and sold high-end goods, and before narrowing his focus to designer glasses. He'd deliver limited-edition sneakers by bicycle to friends around the city. Although he's not officially associated with Cartier and all his frames are individually sourced, Spencer uses a network of authorized dealers to repair and customize frames.
Spencer sinks into a puffy red leather chair with three rectangular Cartier boxes, also red, stacked on his lap. A few of the Doughboyz huddle over him. HBK, short for "Heartbreak Kid," comes up for air holding a pair of vintage Cartiers nicknamed 52 "Teardrop" Woods — 52 for the size, teardrop for the shape, and woods for the material.
"I used to have these," he says. "Matter fact, they were my first pair." HBK is trying them on for a music video he's shooting later in the evening.
"In high school, we was known for the Cartier glasses," says Payroll Giovanni, the group's star hit maker. Today, he's one of the few members of Doughboyz to have retired the look. "I just left them alone back in the day. I was hustling around the time, and I used to keep a lot of cash on me, and I didn't want to have some young, crazy-ass robber coming up on me and taking my re-up."
"Why are y'all talking about robberies and shit? We wanna get sponsored by Cartier," interjects Big Quis, another Doughboy, described to me as the group's wildcard. He recently released a track called "White Buffs" that features ascendant Detroit artist Tee Grizzley. Quis, who's rarely photographed without his signature dark tinted White Buffs, believes the murders and robberies overshadow the true meaning of the glasses. To him, they represent something aspirational, even if the ghost of their stigma is always looming.
Unfortunately for Quis, there's no sign that Cartier has any interest in associating with Detroit. This is in part a business decision. Two short-lived Cartier boutiques came and went in the region — one in the Renaissance Center and another in Somerset. Unlike Paris and New York, Detroit doesn't see the volume of wealthy clientele necessary to maintain an official Cartier store. Residents may line up for entry-level luxury items like sunglasses, but stop short of purchasing $120,000 watches and 5-carat diamond rings.
It’s possible Cartier is happy to quietly profit from its sizable Detroit customer base without ever forging a real relationship with those patrons.
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The only hint of recognition from the brand came with the release of a special-edition pair of Woods with blue and orange stems, the exact same colors as the Detroit Tigers uniform. It could have been a coincidence, but it's also possible Cartier is happy to quietly profit from its sizable Detroit customer base without ever forging a real relationship with those patrons. (Cartier did not respond to repeated requests for interviews.)
At a 2015 luxury goods summit in Monaco, Richemont chairman Johann Rupert said, "What keeps me awake at night is how society will cope with structural unemployment and envy, hatred, and class warfare." With Ferraris parked outside and yachts docked in the shadow of the nearby palace, he explained that when the underclass rises up, "the people with money will not wish to show it." Until then, it seems more likely that these glasses will turn the poor against one another.
Detroit doesn't enjoy the same level of traffic from musicians that New York or L.A. do, and its cultural isolation has been a hindrance for some of the artists here. But it also explains why a fashion trend like Cartier glasses can grip the city for decades. Today, musicians from places like Atlanta to the Bay Area are wearing Cartiers, and the Doughboyz take pride in the fact that Detroit seems to finally be getting its due. The city is beginning to be defined by its culture again, something that's been largely overlooked since the Motown era.
Later in the night, over a bottle of Patrón Silver, the Doughboyz and a sprawling group of their friends gather at a Radisson to finish the last shots of HBK's music video. Just as it appears we'd exhausted the topic of Cartiers, one of the group's managers, Doughboy Darko, speaks up.
"I knew someone that got killed for them. Cat named D. Mills," he says, wringing his hands and looking at the ground through the brown tint of his Buffs. He remembers how good Darryle Miller was at basketball, just as his mother, Rose, and roommate Rod do. "He was coming out the club. I ran into him in there. We heard the gunshot go off. Sure enough, they killed him for a pair of White Buffs."
HBK comes back into the room with a new bottle of Patrón and takes it around as each of the 15 people crammed into the suite taps it for good luck.
"We do this so nothing bad happens tonight," he says. "It's tradition."
Once the bottle makes a full rotation around the suite, HBK pops it open and takes a pull. He adjusts the 52 Teardrop Woods in the mirror. The crew pokes fun at his vanity before the song starts up again, playing out of a set of hotel speakers on the nightstand. It's called "Heartbreaker" and it's the meanest love song I've ever heard, a backward letter of devotion to his girl about how many other girls he has at the ready. HBK raps along:
"They can tell I'm from Detroit by the diamonds in the Cardi."
Zach Goldbaum is a writer and documentary filmmaker based in New York City. He hosted and produced Noisey on Viceland, and was a field producer on The Opposition with Jordan Klepper.
A version of this story was previously published on GQ's website as well as Racked.com. It is reprinted here with permission.
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