Two Durham duos debut new creative ventures this fall, one showcasing the art of screen printing and one built for the communal experience of the silver screen
By Sharon Kinsella
Durm Studio
Walk past 704 Rigsbee Ave. this fall and you won’t just see an apparel store – you’ll see the products taking shape, and that’s the whole point.
Gabriel Eng-Goetz and Michael Brannon, part of the team behind Runaway, the streetwear brand and shop that helped define Durham’s creative scene in the 2010s, join forces again to launch Durm Studio, a new concept that combines a merch production studio with a retail storefront. Inside, the screen-printing press sits in plain view of the register.
“For me, [there are a bunch of reasons for] getting back into selling clothing again, but a big one was [that] I just like having a physical space to show the product,” says Gabe, Durm Studio’s co-owner and chief creative officer. “It’s going to be experiential. You walk in, there’s going to be murals, there’s going to be artwork … and then, on top of that, you can look past our retail displays and see the whole shop, see people actually making the product. It’s gonna be like nothing else you’ve seen in the area.”
The reunion has been a long time coming. Gabe built Runaway with a former business partner while Mike – now Durm Studio’s co-owner and CEO who oversees production and operations – quietly ran production behind the scenes. The two had talked for years about bringing retail and manufacturing together under one roof.
But life pulled them in different directions. Gabe pursued a career as a traveling public sculpture and mural artist while Mike developed a client list that includes several local breweries and restaurants. When the timing aligned, though, the idea resurfaced and now has finally materialized. “It just made sense again for us to revisit the concept,” Mike says, “and it just worked out.”
Where Runaway stuck to retail, Durm Studio is set up to do it all. The in-house screen-printing operation can handle everything from tricky, multilayered color separations to photorealistic prints, which the studio will put to work on custom client jobs once its doors open. Mike already brings a longstanding roster of hospitality connections, and the pair is in early talks with Downtown Durham Inc. and Durham Central Park about future collaborations.
“We can produce any type of merchandise you can imagine,” Gabe says. “One thing we’re focusing on is we want to up the quality of merch – we’re really setting ourselves apart [in that way]. Our store will be a showroom, basically – ‘This is what we can do for you, this is the quality we can achieve.’”
Shoppers can expect fun, edgy T-shirts, socks, hats, accessories and home goods bearing the familiar “Durm” trademark the pair has owned since the 2010s – now reimagined with a fresh 2026 attitude. The culture surrounding the brand has evolved and matured, too.
“We’re not gonna throw as many late-night parties, unfortunately,” Mike laments.
He and Gabe are also planning design collaborations with local creatives and organizations, though they’re keeping those details under wraps for now.
Another key differentiator will be a standing civic commitment: Durm Studio will donate 5% of its annual profits to the Durham Public Schools Foundation every year – no exceptions. It’s a cause that carries personal meaning for Gabe, a Jordan High School graduate. “As we get older, [we think] about mortality and stuff,” he says. “We grew up here, and we’re not kids anymore. How do you ensure the future of Durham? … Durham Public Schools raised me and put me in the position I am today.” Gabe adds that he and Mike eventually want to expand that commitment by offering screenprinting workshops for students, giving the studio’s DPS partnership an educational component, too.
For Gabe and Mike, success extends beyond sales. They hope Durm Studio rekindles the same sense of community that defined Runaway and made it a hometown institution. Mike says he still spots Runaway gear around Durham seven years after the last shirt rolled off the press. One favorite story came from a friend who struck up a conversation with a person on a flight to China after clocking his Runaway T-shirt. “That’s kind of what it’s all about,” Gabe says, “bringing these two random strangers together [through] the love of a city.”
For now, Mike is running the press solo while the team gears up to hire three to four additional employees before opening this fall. “We’ll definitely be selling stuff in time for the holidays,” Gabe laughs.
“Runaway was kind of like Durham’s brand for a little while,” he says. “I hope Durm Studio becomes that.”
Skin and Bones Theater
Alex Maness and Jim Haverkamp have been building toward this moment since they struck up a conversation while waiting in line at Raleigh’s Rialto Theatre in 1997. That chance meeting sparked a friendship, which then turned into a professional partnership, and now, nearly three decades later, it’s produced a second theater.
The longtime collaborators already run Shadowbox Studio, a 35-seat venue-slash-production studio-slash-arts garage near East Club Boulevard that preserves what Jim describes as the spirit of Durham 20 years ago – a time when it felt like “you could walk into a space and anything could happen.”
This fall, they’ll open its larger downtown sibling: Skin and Bones Theater, a 70-seat independent art house cinema and performance space at 118 W. Parrish St.
Shadowbox isn’t going anywhere, they’re quick to clarify. It pays its own rent as a photo and video shoot location, while public events serve as “icing on the cake,” says Jim, a video editor, filmmaker and Duke University film instructor.
But after AMC Classic Durham 15 closed in 2023 and left a city of more than 300,000 people with just two movie theaters, Alex and Jim started to sense an opening.
“That was a real wake-up call,” Jim says. Soon after, they stumbled on this space downtown: a former department store, more than a century old, that fit the bill for their vision of a dedicated – yet flexible – community theater.
Think of the building as a storyboard, with each space setting the stage for the next act. What was once the store’s front display window will become a glass-walled “fishbowl” lounge; an old freight elevator shaft, car removed, opens onto a small, tree-shaded back courtyard Jim calls “a weird little oasis”; and 14-foot ceilings provide room for raked seating and a retractable movie screen suspended above a 10-by-20-foot stage, ready for films, theater productions or whatever unique event comes their way. The cinema will run digital projection, but will also be able to accommodate 16 mm and 35 mm film projectors. Upstairs, office and apartment units owned by landlord and board member Arthur Rogers of Eno Ventures may eventually host visiting artists for short stays.
The lounge and patio areas – and tasty concessions you’ll be able to enjoy there – are more than just amenities; they reflect the team’s “civic cinema” philosophy.
“The more interesting parts of any event are the hangouts and conversations that you have before [or after] the thing happens,” says Alex, a photographer, filmmaker and theater technician who’s handling the “nuts and bolts” of the remodel. He says that’s the kind of environment they want to foster – one that treats moviegoing as a communal act rather than a commercial one.
Programming is where Jim’s touch is most evident. He’s assembled an all-star lineup of voices who will bring diverse films to Skin and Bones’ screen: Film Durham artistic director Penelope Bartlett, BLK Docs co-founder Christopher Everett, Sandra Ntube and Ike Ntube of Two Beer Cinema Club, and Durham Cinematheque founder and director Tom Whiteside. Together, they make up a council who will curate everything from new indie releases and local documentaries to cult classics and kung fu flicks. Confirmed programming so far includes performances during the inaugural Durham Fringe Festival.
A crowdfunding campaign to complete the renovation wrapped in early June after raising $57,968.
“[It showed us that] this isn’t just a crazy idea that we had,” Alex says. “People really, really like the idea and want this to happen.”
“It takes it to another level,” Jim adds. “We’re used to being sort of the garage-level artists, which is easy and comfortable. Now we’re like, in the mother-inlaw apartment above the garage.”
Alex is thinking a little bigger: “I’d love for it to survive and thrive … and become part of the fabric of the community,” he says. “That people really count on it as a place where they can come and see things that they haven’t seen before and have an experience that might be unusual – but that’s exactly why it’s interesting and fun.”
