Haute Pursuit

Chicago’s week of runway shows is one of the fall’s hottest social events. But what is it doing to elevate the city’s fashion profile?

By Beth Wilson

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New fashions from Vatit Itthi Photo Gallery »

But keeping fashion folk happy and engaged is a difficult task. They expect excitement, innovation, and newness. They’re notoriously fickle, not to mention critical, since the industry is, after all, based on constant change. The city knows this, and recently commissioned a study, conducted pro bono by A. T. Kearney, that will detail where the city’s fashion and retail business ranks in relation to, say, Berlin, New York, and Los Angeles. (Its findings are expected to be published in the first quarter of this year.) “The question we need to answer is—what is the next step?” said Jason Felger, cochairman of the Mayor’s Fashion Council and executive vice president of the Chicagoland Entrepreneurial Center. Several designers and industry insiders to whom Chicago spoke were ready to offer up their own suggestions on how the city could freshen its direction, including:

FOCUS FASHION FOCUS
Cave’s solution is simple. Condense the lengthy eight-day fest into a three-day weekend with individual designers or teams of designers staging their own shows throughout the morning and afternoon, a format similar to New York’s Fashion Week. Spread seminars and shopping events in between. The city’s larger, more inclusive runway events could be staged at night. “It creates a saturation of intensity,” Cave says.

A BRING IN THE BUYERS
Since Fashion Focus’s inception, only a handful of local retailers have attended (though more turned out last fall). That’s troublesome if Chicago truly wants to keep designers from fleeing to New York or Los Angeles.

Although Gamble knows buyers are a critical piece of the puzzle, the city has yet to put significant resources or effort behind such outreach. “We know buyers are crucial,” she says. “We’re recognizing that it’s a need, but it’s a funding issue.” (In 2008, Chicago budgeted $225,000 for Fashion Focus, an event that costs upward of $600,000, with the majority of funding coming from sponsors such as Toyota and Lancôme.)

ALIGN WITH STYLEMAX
Buyers by the hundreds already travel to Chicago each October for Style-max, the Midwest’s largest women’s apparel market, held at the Merchandise Mart. There, retailers from around the region, from Nordstrom to Cinnamon Boutique in Roscoe Village, place orders for Three Dots T-shirts and dresses from BCBG for next season. Designers ask: Wouldn’t it make sense for Fashion Focus and Stylemax, which is held quarterly, to coincide?

EDUCATE THE YOUTH
The designer Pierre Colorado, who has built his Chicago-based brand Blake Standard into an almost $2-million business, said many of the emerging designers need help turning their artistic pursuits into a business. “It’s a tough industry to begin with,” says Colorado, whose clothes are sold at 250 stores around the world. “There’s so much—the backroom particulars—not presented to [young designers].” For example, he points out that some retailers have strict shipping guidelines, including the size of the box, the size of the hanger, and what day to ship. He also proposes offering emerging designers an educated, real-world critique. Take a local label with a dress priced at $500. “It may be pretty, but at that price, you’re competing with the biggest names from Paris and Milan,” he says. “Someone needs to say, ‘Are you sure about that?’”

Photography: Courtesy of Fashion Focus