SYRACUSE, N.Y. — In the basement of McCarthy Mercantile on Salina Street in downtown Syracuse you’ll find the By Suli clothing company. Since 2021 it has been selling original designs by the owner, Sulaiman Abdul Sabur. These days, one design has become the best seller. “I saw the fabric and it was instinct. I just knew what I wanted to do with it,” he said.
The By Suli “Home Collection” is ‘Cuse gear. “It’s versatile, it can go with anyone regardless of your color, your social economic status, anything,” he said.
A self-described over confident child, he was born the youngest of five children. His sisters gave him the nickname Suli, and it stuck. He was raised in a Muslim family on the south side of Syracuse by his mother who was a parent advocate for city school families and his father who was a master electrician…