I grew up Russia, actually Ukraine. My family stumbled around trying to figure out how we’re going to make a living. Dry cleaning became a thing that worked for the whole family. My brother and I had to learn every aspect of the dry cleaning business and tailoring is one of those things.

Everyday we wake up and we have to put on clothes. It gives people who don’t even consider themselves artist a platform to say something to the world.

“This is a great suit, I’m pretty happy about it.”

“I deal with people who buy vintage. I deal with people who buy suits for $10 and put $150 into it to make it look right.

“I wear this a lot, it’s a velvet tuxedo.”

“I’m the founder of an event called Williamsburg Fashion weekend. I strongly encourage designers to not do straight runway shows, but to do performance based shows.”

WFW is a platform to unearth talent and bring it to the foreround and you know, we want to infiltrate the big industry and change it from the inside.

Really my ultimate goal is to just be an artist and be able to wake up and create art … I’m grateful I get to work in my house and my work is something I actually love to do, I love my friends and my ambition is just to be surrounded by my friends and make art

Arbit arrived in Brooklyn from the Ukraine with his family in 1979. Looking for a way to make a living in the United States, the Arbits took up dry cleaning and Arthur was forced to learn the business. He quickly took to tailoring, feeling an sense of empowerment from helping people “make their clothes fit right.”

Arbit still makes a living as a tailor, but he considers himself an artist first and foremost. He founded Williamsburg Fashion Weekend six years ago. At the time, he had a simple goal in mind: he wanted to showcase his clothing line. Designing and making clothes is an artistic pursuit, like painting, that Arbit focuses on when he’s not doing alterations to pay the rent on his spacious loft near the Williamsburg bridge.

When it came to creating a fashion show, Arbit realized there was strength in numbers. He had experience putting together rock shows and tapped into his organizing skills to gather like-minded Brooklyn designers for fashion event far outside the mainstream.

Williamsburg Fashion Weekend is now an anticipated part of the fashion scene Brooklyn, with shows twice a year that showcase up-and-coming designers who Arbit hopes will break through to the “big leagues.” Most of the designers who participate are just like him: artists with day jobs who try to find the time to be creative amid the financial demands of living in New York City.

During the interview process, Arbit told us his family’s first dry cleaning business was located in Midwood, next to a social club for mobsters, who kept his family busy. The boss, Arbit said, would “wear his sweaters once and get them dry cleaned.”

“He always told me ‘I’m coming over there and I want to see you with pins in your mouth’,” Arbit recalled. “They were nice guys.”

He also enjoyed admiring the gangsters’ cars, including a Cadillac with an eight-cylinder engine.