As the saying says, “it’s all in the name.” And for this contemporary men’s and women’s boutique, the name exudes both the story and the sophistication behind the store, before even stepping in the door. Sir & Madame is a boutique and clothing line founded by husband-and-wife team Brian and Autumn Merritt. The Merritts, however, are no strangers to the Chicago fashion circuit. In 2006, they opened Solemates, which dished up street-smart footwear for those whose urban chic hailed from top to bottom.

They certainly mastered the art of the cool shoe, but closed the store down to embark on a new adventure, moving from their Lincoln Park location over to the even hipper Ukrainian Village. Autumn appreciates being able to “feed off the energy of other local businesses.” Regardless of the cachet of the neighborhood, Sir & Madame holds its own, oozing a sense of nostalgia mélanged with a modern sensibility, or as they call it “classic with a twist.” Read the rest of this entry »

Earlier today, fashionistas fumed when blogger Audarshia Townshend tweeted, “OK, so it’s been brought to my attention that Chicago Fashion Week is NO LONGER. WTF?!” A reasonable premise given the recent demise of Gen Art, who traditionally produced the centerpiece show, and the exit of Melissa Gamble, the city’s fashion honcho, and the thundering silence about this year’s plans emanating from City Hall, which usually gets announced about now. (Last year, Tommy Hilfiger flew in to help announce the events on July 14.)

We asked the city to confirm or deny the report and this is the response from Kiran Advani, who does PR for the Chicago Office of Tourism:

“The Chicago Office of Tourism is denying the reports on Twitter and is confirming that there will be fashion shows taking place at Millennium Park in October. A press conference regarding more information about the City’s fashion initiatives and programming is tentatively planned for sometime in August.”

By Rhianna Jones

Ann Taylor is redefining itself. In order to get the word out that this long-esteablished staple for the well-dressed working woman is undergoing a discernible rejuvenation, Laura Pellegrini, the label’s VP Senior Designer, recently visited Chicago to preview its latest collection for select members of media and the city’s fashion circuit.

The cool atmosphere in a private room in Sunda restaurant perfectly complemented the modern sensibility emanating from the clothes on display. In addition to the various media, designers and fashion aficionados, several company representatives—dressed head to toe in Ann—made the rounds, perpetuating the sophistication and wearability of the brand. Read the rest of this entry »

Paul Hornschemeier, the graphic novelist behind “Mother, Come Home,” “The Three Paradoxes,” and “Let Us Be Perfectly Clear,” has launched a line of t-shirts. Every week since late April, he’s posted a new design for sale at The Forlorn Funnies Shirt Shop, your online source for tees, hoodies and infant-sized onesies emblazoned with Hornschemeier’s characteristically quirky (his word: “strange”) graphics.

Hornschemeier has been designing graphic t-shirts since he was a teenager, but a stint contributing weekly cartoons to The Wall Street Journal inspired him to get the shirt shop going. “I realized that while I enjoyed working with the editor there and liked having something popping into the world each week, I’d rather have that something be entirely of my own creation,” he says. Read the rest of this entry »

It may be summer in the Windy City, but in the world of design, it’s a different season entirely. Just ask Donaldo Smith. “Spring 2011!” he declares triumphantly. “[That's when I'll make] my first introduction to the public.”

As the only male designer in residence at the Macy’s on State Street Chicago Fashion Incubator, Smith has been hard at work on his conceptual menswear brand, Killian Gui.

“Come spring, I have high expectations,” he says. “That’s when it will be in stores.”

For Smith, it’s been a long time coming. “I’ve been fascinated with clothing ever since I knew I was going to be able to wear a new piece… to the first day of school,” he says.

Signing up for “any subscription to menswear fashion that [he] could,” the young fashion naif set out on a self-taught path of design. “I was a sales assistant to the Midwest buyer [of] an urban clothing company,” he says. “I thought it was the best thing ever, because that’s how I dressed at the time.” Read the rest of this entry »

“I am a happening!” Michael Hodesh proclaims as he surveys the antique-laden tables in front of his circa-1964 Airstream trailer. On the inside of the door, a sign reads “Dogs and Cats Prohibited” even though he has a regal pup parading around his goods; the outside sign reads “Bar’s Open Late,” but he doesn’t drink. Michael is definitely a character, and seemingly a man of quirky contradictions.

At present he is at the west end of the Randolph Street Market Festival, an antique fair and indie fashion market that graces Chicago one weekend per month in the summer. Hodesh has made the haul from his base in Cincinnati to this fair for years. While driving a truck with an attached trailer full of stuff roughly 300 miles might seem burdensome to some, for Hodesh it’s just part of the job. After being in the “history-selling business” for more than thirty-five years, his passport is just as weathered as the treasures on his table. Aluminum pigs from Mexico, a wooden stool from China, wooden pipe molds from Philadelphia, fashion posters from Paris and some classic Americana advertisements. He travels all over the world for these gems, and he plays no favorites. He is merely a temporary keeper, he says, selling the “story passing” rather than a mere tangible object. He collects these artifacts because he hopes it will be meaningful to the new “foster parent of history” or anyone else who listens to his exuberant tales. Read the rest of this entry »

No primly dressed editors with the latest “it” bags sitting at their Louboutin-shod feet grace this front row; here Converse and fringed messenger bags are de rigueur. They serve Pabst and not Champagne. Instead of invitation-only, this event is free and open to anybody with even the slightest interest in fashion walking along Damen Avenue, allured by the thumping beats coming from upstairs. While none of this fits the the standard for what a fashion show should be, the result is a very stylish affair.

Kokorokoko, a vintage boutique started by Sasha Hodges and Ross Kelly in March 2009, sells eighties and nineties vintage fashions. The name sprouted from the title of the jewelry line Sasha started out of art school, because she thought Coco Rococo “sounded like a cool drag queen name.” Working as a jewelry designer/stylist by day and DJ at night, she met Ross—who suggested all the Ks—and so started Kokorokoko. They wanted the boutique to evoke the music, things and happenings from their favorite years, 1979 to1993, a time that Sasha feels was “pre-irony.” In her opinion, people would buy a cotton jumpsuit covered in bicycles simply “because they liked bicycles,” rather than trying to be kitschy or nostalgic. Designers and their customers shared a certain genuine love of craziness back then, and this same candor with self-expression and passion for silliness reverberates throughout the entire Kokorokoko show. Read the rest of this entry »

Dear Creatures chambray romper from Penelope's boutique

By Monica Westin

“Rompers are for hipsters and babies and the babies of hipsters,” claims my friend Jenn, a marketer for Whole Foods whose husband is the front man of a Pitchfork-adored band. “I have no problem with them, but rompers simply aren’t appropriate for anyone over the age of eight,” fumes my most fashionable and liberal friend Risa, who favors menswear and a sweater knitted with a handgun pattern. It’s a sentiment shared by both fashion insiders and outsiders. The romper, a summery one-piece women’s garment combining a short-sleeved or sleeveless top with shorts, has gotten a lot of ridicule since it emerged as a trend in Brooklyn around 2006 or 2007 (depending on who you talk to) and fully mainstreamed across the country last summer. Major fashion critics have called rompers regressive, tacky, ridiculous.

But as arbiters of fashion on the ground keep wearing them, the fashion world has finally given up, given in, and bought in. Vogue recently reported on the Coachella 2010 look, highlighting the importance of the romper by including photos taken by blogger Hanneli of indie actresses and fashionistas wearing belted flowered rompers (along with exposed lingerie and camel-colored woven sandals, the other two big bicoastal summer trends). In 2009, after editors starting showing up to the magazine’s office in jumpsuits, Vogue overcame its skepticism that women would actually wear them. Senior Market Editor Meredith Melling Burke admits, “When I first saw them at the shows, I thought, ‘Oh, are we going there?’… but now I’m eating my words.” And designers, beginning with Gaultier and now Marc Jacobs and others (including it-boy Jason Wu in spring 2010), are catching on by including romper looks in their collections. Even more importantly, progressive, more mainstream women are starting to realize how functional and flattering the romper can be, even if to the mockery of their friends. Read the rest of this entry »

For Michael Blossom, history and fashion go hand-in-hand. In 2007 he opened Florodora, a high-end women’s boutique featuring a vintage-inspired collection of clothing and accessories, some of which are designed and produced locally. The boutique is located in the South Loop on the first floor of the Monadnock Building, a historic landmark for the city, but also a personal landmark for Blossom. His grandmother worked on the seventh floor of the building in the early twentieth century. Everything about Florodora is inspired by that time period: from the antique chandeliers and ornate wooden furniture pieces inside the store, to the clothing, handbags and jewelry.

Blossom’s newest venture also combines fashion and history. Florodora Shoes is located just south of Florodora and on the same block, at 348 South Dearborn. After some research on the Monadnock Building, Blossom learned the corner retail space that now houses Florodora Shoes has been home to multiple businesses, most interestingly, two different shoe stores. From 1902 through the 1940s, a shoe store named Hassel’s occupied the space. In the 1950s, a retailer named Hardy moved in, and also sold shoes. “You could tear up this carpet and find ‘Hardy’ in places,” Blossom says. Read the rest of this entry »

Gen Art has closed. Melissa Gamble, Chicago’s director of fashion arts and events, has resigned. With two seemingly huge blows to Chicago’s fashion industry, stylish minds want to know: What will become of the rest of the second city’s nascent but growing fashion community? If the six designers in residence at the Chicago Fashion Incubator program at Macy’s on State Street (a program Gamble herself helped develop as part of the Mayor’s fashion initiative) are any indicator, the Windy City will be just fine.

Take Christina Fan, for instance.

Launching her C/Fan line just over two years ago, the 26-year-old, who turned down a full scholarship to Chicago Kent College of Law to pursue design, is definitely making her way onto Chicago’s fashion radar. Fan became interested in the profession after several overseas trips to Asia.

“While I was there, I started visiting factories and learning about production,” she says. “I started doing design work.”

Bringing her newfound knowledge back to the States, Fan began developing her own line of clothing based around her instinctual preferences. Read the rest of this entry »