Chicago Fashion Week Returns to Celebrate Creatives and Connect With Consumers

After more than a decade, Chicago Fashion Week is being held again with the city’s endorsement.

To kick off the event, The Curio will be hosting a group runway show titled “A Celebration of Chicago Style” Wednesday night at the Chicago Cultural Center. Eight designers will be participating including better-known ones like Maria Pinto, who first dressed Michelle Obama 20 years ago, and Barbara Bates. Before the models hit the runway, the first annual Ceta Walters Rising Fashion Content Creator Award will be presented.The $10,000 annual honor has been established in memory of the fashion and travel blogger Ceta Walters, who died last year.  

Nearly 50 events will be held all through the city in different neighborhoods between Wednesday and Oct. 20. CFW is intentionally designed to be a decentralized fashion week without one main venue since the city is so widespread, according to The Curio’s cofounder and principal Ian Gerard. Exhibitions, clothing swaps, styling sessions and fashion shows will be part of CFW. “One of the things that sets Chicago apart from other fashion weeks is that almost all of the events are open to the public either through tickets or RSVPs,” Gerard said. “This really presents an opportunity for Chicagoans who have a curiosity or interest in fashion to engage. If you go to the Chicago Fashion Week site, it lists every day what’s happening and where. It also links back to the organization that is having the event so you can find out how to purchase tickets or RSVP.”

During CFW, the Fashion Group International will be bringing back its Rising Star Awards for Chicago on Oct. 15 at Palmer House. There will also be a panel discussion on Oct. 17 about  “Tech Couture: The Future of Fashion and Technology.”

The “Costume Council Golden Jubilee: Celebrating 50 Years of Chicago Fashion” will debut on Oct. 18 at the Chicago History Museum. Asian Fashion Show Chicago is planned for the Wilson Abbey on Oct. 12, and Runway Latinx will stage a show at Cinecity Studios on Oct. 19. Area schools are also getting in on CFW with different types of programming like Dominican University that will stage an alumni fashion show on Oct. 18.

Attendees at Wednesday’s opening night show, which is being presented by Abercrombie & Kent, will also see the finery of such rising stars as Sheila Rashid and Gente Fina, who took part in New York Fashion Week in February, and Chelsea B., a specialist in unique knitwear. The youngest in the field is Alex McDermott, a 2022 graduate of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, who runs I Am Studios.

Another designer who is on the roster is Christina Karin, whose sector is more of the luxury, casualwear ilk.

Justin Dougan-LeBlanc, the interdisciplinary talent whose work includes installations 3-D Print Designs will be showing looks from his Justin Leblanc Design line.

Each of the designers in “A Celebration of Chicago Style” will send 10 looks down the runway in order to give guests a good idea of the range of creatives and variety of fashion that the city offers.

Launched with Maggie Gillette in April of 2022, The Curio is an organization that is all about Chicago fashion, according to Gerard. From the start, The Curio set out “to unite the city’s fashion community, which was in a really bad place, not only because of the pandemic, but also because the city had stopped funding CFW in 2014,” Gerard said.

Having relocated to Chicago from Manhattan with his wife in 2020, he recognized how its fashion scene “had really gone downhill,” based on prior visits to the city in his lead role at Gen Art. From 1994 until March of 2012, Gerard cofounded and served as chief executive officer of Gen Art, which played up emerging creatives and activated brands via consumers’ interest in arts and culture, as well as lifestyle.

With The Curio, bringing the streetwear community and members of the Gold Coast charity gala fashion circuit together was the first goal. Showcasing the best of Chicago-based talent and raising awareness of Chicago fashion resources were two other goals. Making Chicagoans aware was key, since they can support local talent, according to Gerard, who also spoke of the need to raise the profile of Chicago fashion regionally and nationally.

“Hundreds” of designers are working in Chicago, including ones who are working in small quantities or have their own stores, Gerard said. For consumers, that could mean buying something that there are only 10 units of versus 10,000, he said.

“Chicago fashion is an example of the trend that is happening globally away from fast fashion. It’s always been much more custom and small batch,” said Gerard, adding that manufacturing is limited. “It’s more of an entrepreneurial thing. There are no big fashion brands [based here.] People are kind of learning about fashion by themselves because they’re not coming up through a big fashion house.”

Earlier this week the celebrity stylist Law Roach discussed the influence that his home city of Chicago had on his career, during a talk with Fern Mallis at the 92Y. Virgil Abloh also first established himself in Chicago in the earlier years of his career. While many locals go on to other cities, they bring their Chicago roots with them, according to Gerard. “Chicago is definitely a different environment. There isn’t that fashion machine that you can step into, work for somebody for five years and launch your own line,” he said.