A new and improved Crossroads Trading Co. is open for business on the 2700 block of North Clark Street in Lincoln Park.

“The neighborhood is picking up now, and word of mouth about the store has spread. We’ve been in this location for about six years now, and have built a customer base over those years,” says Jessica Blythe, the store manager. “The space next to us had been open for about a year, so we decided to go for it.”

The store purchased that space next door, previously an eyeglasses retailer, knocked down the wall and moved in, nearly doubling their floor space. A more spacious, breathable shopping experience has now replaced the crowded racks and elbow-to-elbow shopping experience that the store used to offer. Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s the press release from the city with the complete FFC schedule for this fall.

FASHION FOCUS CHICAGO 2011

MONDAY, OCTOBER 17 THROUGH SUNDAY, OCTOBER 23

Final schedule of events for the seventh annual celebration of Chicago’s fashion industry

Fashion Focus Chicago, a week-long celebration of Chicago’s thriving fashion industry taking place Monday, October 17 through Sunday, October 23, showcases some of the city’s top designers and features runway shows in Millennium Park and at various locations around the city, plus a variety of free and affordable shopping and designer events and industry happenings. The week’s activities are coordinated and directed by the Chicago Office of Tourism and Culture (COTC) in partnership with the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events. Read the rest of this entry »

By Sarah Alo

It’s hard to walk into any store lately and not see something with feathers. The trend has lasted for more years than expected, trickling from haute couture down to the lowest prices at chain accessories shops. One of the designers at the heart of the trend in Chicago is jewelry designer Aya-Nikole Cook of her brand Haji Couture. Since 2007, Cook has been crafting works of art to adorn women’s ears with feather jewelry. After a rocket to success at the beginning, she’s on hiatus for the past year, hardly stocking in-store and closing her Etsy site. This summer, however, she’s working on a comeback and an answer to the fake feather takeover. Read the rest of this entry »

Chicago designer Diego Rocha won InStyle’s 2011 Independent Handbag Designer Award for the Best Handmade Handbag. As the winner, he receives a designer feature on Singer Sewing Company’s website and Facebook page, as well as a full Singer Sewing Studio and a feature on BurdaStyle.com. Here, Rocha shares the steps he goes through for each custom bag he crafts. Read the rest of this entry »

Fourteen half-naked men roamed the streets of Chicago last week trying to take your suits. Men’s Wearhouse used the day of debt-ceiling talk specifically to highlight the problem of unemployment and promote its month-long National Suit Drive by sending out models cloaked only in boxers and armed with signs asking the public to “Give the Suit Off Your Back.” “Utilizing these visual tools is a lighthearted approach to bringing attention to such a serious issue,” says Julie Town, director of corporate giving at Men’s Wearhouse. The suits provide a key element of beating unemployment: having something to wear to interviews. Although the suit drive happens at locations all over the U.S. throughout the month of August, only select cities hosted the promotional event. Read the rest of this entry »

For all who dream of carrying around old bus seats all day, let your wishes be granted. Well, not whole bus seats—just parts of them. An odd dream, but at Green Goddess Boutique, even the strangest dreams come true. At Green Goddess, which opened at 1009 West Armitage on April 1 (another location is in Hinsdale), recycled and repurposed items yield fashionable goods that often come from unusual places.

These oddly rooted items include handbags made of recycled bus seats from the Argentinean brand Viva Zapata!, but it doesn’t stop there. There are portfolios made with recycled billboards so that they can survive any weather, floor mats made of recycled candy wrappers, light fixtures made out of mason jars—and this is just the beginning. Read the rest of this entry »

Gordana Rasic/Photo: Gino Baileau

By Sarah Alo

Gordana Rasic is a woman of contrast. She is a premed student with a double major in molecular & cellular biology and anthropology, and minors in chemistry and LGBT queer studies. She holds staff positions in cultural and fashion clubs and works a job shadowing medical students. And in her spare time, she designs her autumn/winter collection of women’s clothing and promotes her spring/summer line in Chicago. She is the head designer of Goca Designs, the fashion line she founded in November 2010 at the age of 20.

Rasic says she enjoys medicine and fashion for a common reason: She likes solving puzzles. When using critical analysis for diagnosis in the medical field or for any area of science, there is a puzzle present. “When I’m sewing, I refuse to use patterns,” Rasic says. To her, the material is one big puzzle.

Rasic is self-taught, but has always been involved in a wide range of the arts, from painting to acting, from singing to dancing. “The whole realm of the art world is a passion of mine,” Rasic says. It was not until her sophomore year at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she will be a senior this fall, that she decided she wanted to make things that were both in fashion and affordable.

More importantly, however, Rasic’s clothing has meaning. She says many designers these days design for aesthetics, while she and a few others design for artistic integrity and unveil a message.

Her spring/summer collection features bright colors and inspirations from Nabokov’s “Lolita”—the cuts originate from children’s clothing but are adapted for a woman’s style. “My key message was that as we all entered adulthood, we had to put our imaginations on the backburner,” she says. “The collection overall shows the progression from day to night looks, but conveys the message that despite the location, time or personality, we are all capable of preserving our imagination, and finally, embodying it. Read the rest of this entry »

The new AllSaints Spitalfields store on Michigan Avenue may be mistaken for an art gallery, vintage clothing factory, or even a modeling agency. The front of the store boasts 800 vintage Singer sewing machines, harkening back to the roots of the fashion industry. Ruggedly good-looking, stylish men and women greet customers at the entrance. And the entire store is so thoroughly decorated and atmospheric that you just don’t know where to look.

Since it started in the UK in the mid-nineties, AllSaints global expansion has led to ten U.S. standalone stores, a U.S.-specific website, and fourteen concessions in Bloomingdale’s nationwide.

The Chicago flagship store is a continuation of this expansion, and expansion is just the right word for the 11,000-square-foot space. A large glass atrium at the entrance looks as if the Michigan Avenue spot has turned into an industrial European train station. After gazing up at the sewing machines, the interior has a multitude of cinematic spotlights filling the ceilings, and the entire store has a rough, worn-in, distressed feel. Sewing-machine-like hardware and structures grace the floor and many of the whitewashed brick walls, which rise up forty-two feet before hitting the ceiling. The majority of the store’s fixtures are salvaged, and any that aren’t are handmade in the UK. There is a huge projection screen stretching across the entire store. Read the rest of this entry »

You might call this news a feast for the eyes: designer eyewear boutique Oliver Peoples opens its newest boutique, in Chicago’s Gold Coast, on July 9.

“Chicago has always been a target city for us to open an Oliver Peoples Boutique,” says David Schulte, CEO. “The city’s rich design, art and architectural heritage, in addition to the sophisticated people who live there, are a perfect match with our brand.” The new store even features a limited-edition frame sold exclusively at the Chicago location—a unisex style with eighteen-carat gold lenses and custom stamping and packaging.

The new Chicago location has similar design to Oliver Peoples boutiques across the nation, but with a couple of hints at Chicago’s culture. Its ash wood and concrete floors give a nod to the brand’s aesthetic: simplistic, sartorial and sexy. The store’s general manager, Chad Lissak, says the store “creates a unique retail experience that is more reminiscent of a contemporary gallery than a typical frame shop.” Lissak has been a part of everything involving the new store, from finding the location to putting the last frame on the shelf.

The boutique experience (as opposed to buying Oliver Peoples at a distributor location) offers the customer a more tailored experience. “Our eyewear stylists are extremely knowledgeable and can offer custom fittings to help you select the perfect frame taking into consideration all of the elements. We have on-site opticians for any and all prescription needs,” Lissak says. (Sarah Alo)

Oliver Peoples, 941 North Rush

Scoop NYC is taking things slowly—its second store in Chicago, just opened in the Gold Coast, comes about four years after the company entered Chicago with its Bucktown location at 1702 North Milwaukee.

So what’s different about the new store?  The 4,800-square-foot Gold Coast store reflects an updated version of Scoop, says Heidi Hoelzer, the buyer director and divisional merchandise manager. “We will open the store with our best product and brands and, after spending more time with the Gold Coast Scoop customer, we will edit as necessary. I think we will see more tourists in our Gold Coast store than we do in Bucktown, with a higher demand for designer items,” says Hoelzer.

For this reason, the Gold Coast Scoop store will add Roberto Cavalli and Missoni to its designers roster, which includes Helmut Lang, Alice & Olivia, Free City, Burberry, Camilla Skovgaard, Anya Hindmarch, Zac Posen, Dsquared, Billy Reid and Simon Spurr. “From the best shirt, denim, blazer, cocktail dress, or beach cover-up to a strappy sandal, we have it all under one roof for men and women,” Hoelzer says.

Under that roof are two stories of men’s and women’s merchandise, with women’s clothing, accessories and shoes on the first floor and a glass staircase leading to menswear on the second. A 375-square-foot terrace provides event space, and Scoop expects to host a book signing event for the authors of “Who What Wear,” as well as trunk shows and charity events. (Sarah Alo)

Scoop NYC, 1011 North Rush, (312)649-9880