It once seemed fitting, if never flattering, that the City of Big Shoulders’ claim to fashion fame was as Housedress Capital of the World.
“I don’t think people here know what a housedress is anymore,” Dorothy Fuller, president of the 18-year-old Apparel Industry Board, said of the hausfrau-frock that defined the city’s clothing manufacturing.
That fade from memory seems fitting now too. Designers and boutiques here are sketching a much sleeker silhouette than the humble house-dress of yore.
“We’ve seen Chicago change over the years,” said Dominic Marcheschi, co-owner with his wife of the 20-year-old Blake, which is moving its cache of Dries van Noten and other cutting-edge designers from Lincoln Avenue to 212 W. Chicago Ave. this fall. “Chicago has in itself evolved into a more beautiful city, and there’s a lot going on here in terms of fashion. People don’t necessarily leave Chicago to buy it, and there are people who come here to buy it. When we get customers from New York in our shop, they love it.”
Other unique boutiques–Jake and Krista K. on Southport Avenue, p.45 and Helen Yi on Damen Avenue, Ikram on the Gold Coast–stock their shops with their own visions of hip and haute, with an occasional homegrown offering.
A cocktail of talent and talent-spotting is creating national buzz. A New York-based style scout, the e-newsletter Daily Candy, established a Chicago outpost last spring, following the arrival three years ago of New York-based Gen Art, a group that promotes emerging talent in the arts.
Fashion magazines regularly credit shops here.
“Bucktown/Wicker Park is the SoHo of Chicago,” said Tom Bynum, who just opened a Bynum & Bang storefront for his menswear of the same name at 2143 W. Division St.
Bynum’s clothing, including gold-button jackets with crests and jeans painted by Indian artist An (the ones he wore bore a Susan B Anthony quote), was featured in a show presented by Bucktown’s Salonblonde in August.
“The Midwest is always getting a bad rap [for fashion],” Salonblonde owner Margaret Pasien-nik said. “But Chicago’s becoming a hub. If New York is like Madrid, Chicago’s like Barcelona.”
Such comparisons to New York and L.A. crop up more positively than in the past.
When Bravo’s fashion-reality show “Project Runway” scheduled a casting call in Chicago earlier in the summer, the judges didn’t expect 180 designers competing for spots on the cross between “American Idol” and “The Apprentice.” Twenty had to be turned away.
Not yet announced, 12 finalists from the calls in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Miami will be given design challenges, and one contestant will be cut each week from the show, which will begin airing in November. Banana Republic has signed on to be the mentor.
“Chicago was really good, better than we expected,” said one of the casting-call judges, New York-based Gen Art fashion director Mary Gehlhar. “It’s much easier to gauge in L.A. or New York where there is a Fashion Week and there’s a lot of industry there for it. We haven’t had a sense of how big the universe of emerging designers is in Chicago.”
Fashion programs such as the School of the Art Institute’s and Columbia College’s are growing.
Gen Art regional manager Kelly O’Brien cites Lara Miller, known for her convertible sweaters, and Doris Ruth, a ’40s and ’50s-inspired line by Allie Adams, as examples of the surge of energy here.
“It really seems we’re having this movement of designers staying in Chicago,” O’Brien said. “It’s becoming cheaper to produce here and there are more resources.”
Boutiques and local designers, such as Maria Pinto, who just restarted her eveningwear line, aren’t the only fuel for the fashion scene.
Hometown department store Marshall Field’s has planned its first-ever Fashion Week, a series of runway shows across from its State Street store, from Saturday through Sept. 25th. Designers John Varvatos and Michael Kors will visit.
The blur among different kinds of design is helping all of them, said Peter Gogarty, founder of an interconnected arts organization called M5.
Last month, the group dedicated an event to fashion, called “Seamless,” featuring the fashion of designer Cat Chow and other Chicagoans, along with dance performances and art installations, in a warehouse in the Fulton Market area.
“Everyone’s breaking down the boundaries of what traditional designers used to be,” Gogarty said. “Fashion is a strong component.”
Underscoring that interplay, the costumes of dancers at the event were designed by Miller. She limits her costuming to two troupes, the Seldoms and Lucky Plush. The conceptual designs inform her retail work, she said.
“It keeps my mind moving,” she said.
Bynum & Bang’s symbol–ants–crawl up the leg of the painted jeans he sells and inside the linings of jackets.
They reinforce the message of his brand and Chicago fashion in general
“Ants,” he said, “represent a driven culture.”
Staying power: A look at designer Lara Miller
Chicago native Lara Miller walked into the boutique p.45 two years ago dressed in her own designs but wanting nothing more than to sell others’ clothing.
The boutique had no sales positions available. But the owners asked whether the convertible shirt/skirt she wore into the shop was being pro-duced for retail.
“I said, ‘No–I don’t have any money. I need a job.’ “
The boutique offered to sponsor a show for her. If response was positive, p.45 wondered, would Miller be able to get a loan to put her clothing on the racks at their shop?
“I was like, ‘Yes!’–not really knowing if I could or not,” she said.
Between preparing for the show and finishing her senior year at the School of the Art Institute, “I basically slept three hours a night.”
Now Miller’s line of wovens and sweaters, some of which can flip from long cardigans to shrugs with shawl collars, have spread from four stores in her first year to 17 around the country in the second. In Chicago it is exclusive to p.45.
But this 24-year-old has skipped the once requisite immigration to New York. She stitches from a Wrigleyville apartment that is one cog in her mini-factory. She finally was forced to farm out some of the knitting and patternmaking to con-tractors in the city.
“You can tell this used to be my living room,” Miller said, pointing to where the TV and fire-place have been swamped by racks of brown-paper patterns and sweater samples. The window air conditioner remained off on an 85-degree day to conserve power for the sewing machine and the knitting machine in the so-called dining room. She does all her cutting from her bed.
She isn’t complaining.
Her apartment is perhaps double the space of what a fledgling designer could afford in Manhattan. And this isn’t the first time she has cheerfully suffered for her art.
With her parents hoping she would choose any career less risky than fashion design, she started college at Syracuse University in New York.
She would hide in the bathroom when guards locked up the design building for the night. Then she would emerge to snatch a sleeping bag from her locker and creep back into the work room for hours more of designing, followed by a catnap under a desk until dawn.
Her parents saw she was serious. She transferred to the School of the Art Institute soon after.
