When last heard from, Alice Berry had just returned to her native Chicago from four successful years of fashion designing in Paris. The former South Sider and School of the Art Institute graduate was setting up shop in a River North gallery district studio and preparing a collection for City, the hottest spot in town for avant-garde design.
In the intervening seven years, City has closed, but Berry, who now uses her Bucktown home/studio as a base of operations, is doing just fine, thank you.
Her clothes are selling well at Art Effect in Chicago, Miriam`s in Evanston and the Patty Smith boutique in Detroit.
This fall, she`ll be teaching for the first time in Columbia College`s three-year-old fashion design program. She`d also like to pull together a seminar on fashion and feminism.
Then there`s a certain corporate lawyer (and art collector in his spare time) now playing a prominent role in Berry`s life. ”I met him at a bar. Honest to God,” she says, laughing. She married Thomas Bamonte nearly two years ago.
Nowadays, Berry usually can be found in the attic-turned studio/workroom, where she`s putting the finishing touches on her fall collection. The clothes are loose and swingy, but she has shed much of the Asian influence that marked her earlier work.
”Things have gotten straighter,” she says of her designs. Yet she adds: ”I`m still subversive.”
The fact that her creations are a far cry from conservative is precisely what attracts her clients. Ranging in age from 25 to 80, they are artistic, entrepreneurial and independent-minded, says Berry. ”Very rarely do I have a client worry about whether her husband will like something.”
Unimpressed by much of what is going on in the mainstream fashion world, Berry has turned to color itself as the primary inspiration for her collection. Elaborate appliques on her jackets-the centerpieces of her ensembles-juxtapose different hues to create illusions of transparency and other visual effects.
”I have to do things that keep myself interested,” says Berry, who began sewing her own garments at age 6.
Other pieces showcase Berry`s affinity for fabric, and its interplay with the human form. Particularly stunning are the Italian brocades and lining she has worked into several separates.
Although all of Berry`s designs are essentially sporty, the elegance of the materials enables her clients to use her separates for evening looks, she says. Jackets retail from about $250 to $450; pants, about $90 to $140;
skirts, about $80 to $130; blouses about $90 to $150.
Berry`s list of clients keeps growing. But despite the urging of friends and customers, she has no plans to significantly enlarge her operation. Her last attempt to expand, back in 1987, fell apart when the retail market hit the skids. She now regards what happened as ”sort of a blessing in disguise.”
”Life`s been happy ever since I decided not to get bigger,” says Berry, who relishes the control she can maintain with a smaller-scale business. ”I know some famous designers, and none of them are any happier.”
