Port Huron’s Mary Maxim sold out of the sweater Ryan Gosling’s character wears in the film, but the company is taking orders online.
A Michigan business is getting some out-of-this-world buzz after one of its designs was featured in the new sci-fi blockbuster “Project Hail Mary.”
Mary Maxim, a yarn and crafts company headquartered in Port Huron, is the source of the cozy-looking zip-up fox-themed cardigan that Ryan Gosling’s character, Ryland Grace, wears in the film.
After the movie debuted last weekend to a $140 million worldwide gross, the humble sweater became a star. People quickly tracked it down to Mary Maxim, and while its initial stock sold out, the company’s website is currently taking orders for $89.99.
There’s only one catch: it comes as a kit, and it’s up to buyers to handle the knitting part themselves.
How did it all happen? “Project Hail Mary’s” costume designer Glyn Dillon reached out to the company in the last year about using the sweater, which was originally found at a vintage fair in Canada and featured a wolf design, says Mary Maxim’s president and owner, Mitch McPhedrain. (That’s also him modeling the design on the company’s website.)
The wolf was amended to become a fox — it was determined the fox would better fit Gosling’s character, a middle school science teacher sent into outer space on a mission to save life on Earth — and Mary Maxim is now getting its moment on the big screen.
“It’s been overwhelmingly successful,” says McPhedrain, on the phone Friday from Port Huron. “We definitely knew it was coming, I didn’t think it would be on this level though.”
He says his team is currently working with suppliers and vendors to source the materials to fill all the new orders, and is hoping by next week to be able to start shipping them out.
He’s also been fielding a lot of media calls this week, and since the sweater was featured on Friday on “Good Morning America,” he’s expecting even more attention while celebrating the win for his company.
Mary Maxim was founded nearly 100 years ago in Sifton, Manitoba, and came to Port Huron in 1956. The family-owned business — it was named after a former employee, Mary Maximchuk — was started by Willard and Olive McPhedrain, and Mitch McPhedrain is the fourth-generation owner.
The company’s Port Huron store, once its only brick and mortar store in the U.S., closed in 2017, but there’s still a retail store in Paris, Ontario.
The company has had a few pop culture moments over the years — Canadian pop-rock stars Barenaked Ladies wore Mary Maxim sweaters in the promotional materials for their 2004 holiday album, and Angela Lansbury wore one of its sweaters in an episode of “Murder, She Wrote” — but nothing quite like the current “Project Hail Mary” flashpoint.
It fits into a larger pop culture moment for big, bulky sweaters, also spotted in the hit streaming series “Heated Rivalry” and on Elphaba (played by Cynthia Erivo) in “Wicked: For Good.”
McPhedrain took about 50 employees to see “Project Hail Mary” Tuesday at the GQT Krafft 8 in Port Huron. “We almost had a full theater!” he says.
He was thrilled to see Gosling wearing the sweater in the movie, and proud of the amount of screen time it received. “I couldn’t ask for a better feature in a movie,” he says.
As for knitting the sweater from the materials provided in the kit, assembly requires moderate-to-intermediate-level skills; newbies to the sewing game “would have to watch a lot of YouTube videos, I think,” he says. (Selling the sweaters ready-made “is definitely a thought I’ve had,” McPhedrain says, but he doesn’t have the staff to pull that off.)
McPhedrain says he wants to embrace the attention the sweater is earning for the company, and sees it as a reinforcement of the company’s values.
“I think if you focus on something that is quality, with unique designs that separate yourselves from everyone else, at some point, potentially, you can have a big win like this,” he says.
agraham@detroitnews.com
