For their Fall 2011 Rodarte collection, The Mulleavy sisters were inspired by the “Golden Hour” on the Great Plains when the light glows during the hours after sunrise and before sunset. Beyond the mastery of craftsmanship evident in every design, Rodarte creates an entire world in each collection. For me, the best part of New York Fashion Week is anxiously awaiting photos from the Rodarte show to leak out. I always try to guess (impossible, I know) what wildly obscure reference the sisters will have built their latest mind-blowing collection around.
Dr. Lisa Airan next to Irina Kulikova, Spring 2008
The Mulleavys are not only artistic prodigies, they are smart women who know what true fashion customers want. Their die-hard customers, like Dr. Lisa Airan, are strong, intelligent women who want to feel immersed in an entire world through an article of clothing. Rehashing 1970s beige – season after season – will no longer be tolerated, as those of us who watch fashion closely have recently seen. Rodarte raises the bar for the entire industry.
Having grown up on the edge of the Ozarks right next to the border of the prairie, this is an area close to my heart. Let me tell you about the personal connection I have to the American plains so you will know why this collection in particular means so much to me. I moved to Northwest Arkansas when I was 9 and grew up around a half hour from the border with Oklahoma so my father could fulfill his lifelong dream of owning a cattle ranch. Following your dreams is an important value in my family, which is why my parents are so supportive of this website (despite their strong ambivalence towards fashion).
My parents are both avid skiers and so we went on skiing trips to Colorado two or three times a year. We always drove through Kansas, the heart of the prairie, to get to the ski resort areas surrounding Frisco, Colorado. I have so many memories of hour upon hour just gazing out at the mirage-like expanse of sunflowers and wheat. The prairie truly is a “golden land,” with very little green. The azure blue sky seems more like a dome there than anywhere else I’ve ever been. It feels like an optical illusion. When the storm clouds roll in, it’s as though a wall of black appears out of nothingness. Just like the “storm dress” in the video above. I cannot tell you how perfectly they nailed the references for the entire collection. And it’s not just the “Wizard of Oz” ruby red slippers reference on Kansas-bred Lindsey Wixson.
I also spent every summer during high school helping my dad cut and bail hay to feed the cattle at our ranch during winter. Yes, I can drive a tractor. I can operate a wide variety of farm equipment including arc welders, chainsaws, tetters, tractor rakes, and post hole diggers. I always joke that if the world came to an end, I could survive. My father and I would do entire sections of a hay field at once, him driving the big Ford tractor with the mower attached and me driving the smaller tractor with a tedder behind him, fluffing up the hay before raking it into windrows. As you can see below, the Mulleavys captured the feeling of being in a hay field with their dress below.
Not only is my life visually linked to the imagery of the great plains, but I understand what it means to farm them as well. Giving you a rundown on my Arkie past (oh, the horror!), is completely relevant to this collection because I understood Rodarte’s references at a visceral, spiritual, and intuitive level. I wouldn’t be telling you about my secret past as a farm hand unless I was serious in saying that the Mulleavys complete and totally captured the entire spirit and essence of the plains in a clothing collection. This is why their work is considered art. Because it is art.
I understood immediately that nauseous color of yellow-green in the “tornado dress.” Why? Because everyone who grows up in tornado alley knows that during a tornadic storm the sky turns an eerily sickening shade of vomit before the hail starts punching holes in windshields and shingles start peeling off the roof. That color meant I better collect all my favorite beanie babies from my bedroom (I’m a child of the 90s) quickly before my parents made our family huddle in the basement.
And the storm dress reminded me of a wall cloud, which my mother used to drive me and my brothers to the top of Mount Sequoyah to watch roll into Fayetteville from the Oklahoma plains. Storms usually “cook up” during the day with the heat of the sun and usually arrived just after sunset. The combination of warm and cool air and violently reacts to create supercells.
For me to have this profound of a connection to a designer collection is simply extraordinary. Beyond the artistic and visual splendor of Rodarte Fall 2011, I have a deeply personal attachment. I told Kate Mulleavy all of this when I had the chance to chat with her at Ikram’s 10th anniversary party. She was delighted. Kate told me that she loves to hear from people who grow up in ‘Tornado County’ that they love Fall 2011 because she and her sister grew up in California. They took a risk by referencing a somewhat alien land. To hear from people like me that we “get” the collection and get the references means they succeeded. Yes Kate, you not only succeeded but you continue to elevate the craft of fashion as a true art. “Succeed” seems like such an insignificant verb to describe their profound and ever increasing achievements, but it goes a long way in showing how humble and true to their craft Kate and Laura are.
*All photos courtesy of Style.com: Spring 2008 and Fall 2011
Yes this is a total gushy piece, but I don’t care. I’m allowed to fall in love with clothing. And the Mulleavy sisters.
This is a wonderful video Medill journalism student Emily Ferber created about me for Northwestern University’s fashion magazine, STITCH. This video accompanies the article Chicago’s Fashion Facelift in the May 2011 issue, which I re-posted below. She followed me around with her camera for a entire day, documenting how I work. Hope you all enjoy seeing me in action!
Amy Creyer stands at the corner of Rush and Oak streets in an imposing Mongolian-fur coat and Ray-Ban aviators. It is spring in Chicago but hardly feels that way. Despite the inclement weather, Creyer has been out with her camera for roughly two hours, walking loops around the Magnificent Mile.
Passersby seem slightly taken aback by her petite figure roughly resembling Chewbacca with a hawk-like gaze. “I feel like I’m starting to cultivate an image of myself,” Creyer says of her unique look. “People are definitely starting to recognize the coat.” Unfazed by their glances, she continues to scour the streets for the city’s most fashionable to feature on her blog.
Creyer’s blog, ChicagoStreetstyle.com, where she posts her photographs of chic
shoppers around Chicago, has received national press since she began blogging in June 2010. Since then, she has attended exclusive parties at New York Fashion Week and has been asked to host parties for Chicago’s fashion luminaries. And she is not the only one receiving attention for having a keen eye for layering, color and style. Creyer, 24, is a part of Chicago’s ever-increasing online community of fashion photographers, writers and designers.
Chicago’s style reconstruction
Style bloggers are a new breed of fashion elite, gaining invitations to the most
exclusive events the fashion world has to offer. Creyer says the fame is a product of their accessibility. “If I say a product fit into my life well, people are going to respond to it because I’m a real person,” she said, contrasting her blog to sites like Style.com.
This personal touch has come to define Chicago’s growing fashion scene.
Once thought to take a back seat to cities like New York and Los Angeles, Chicago is establishing itself as an incubator for budding designers, stylists and writers.
“It is starting to gain focus in a very cottage industry manner, and it is maybe not
completely focused on fashion, but more about garment,” said School of the Art Institute of Chicago Professor Conrad Hamather. “And there is a difference between fashion and garment without hesitation.”
Embodying Chicago’s growing fashion reputation, Weinberg freshman Zoe
Demacela designs and manufactures her own clothing line out of Chicago.
“I think Chicago is special because it’s the perfect environment to get started,”
Damacela said. Damacela began her fashion line at 14 years old and won the nationwide Youth Entrepreneurship Challenge in 2009.
She said she may end up in New York one day but for now she is content to be designing from Chicago. “There are so many programs here where artists get the skills that they need to start without the competition. There is less press than in New York but the press that we do have people really read and pay attention to, so it doesn’t mean you’ll get less attention,” she said.
Without the big brands taking over the small fashion community, fashion
publications like Chicago Social have taken a different approach to publicizing fashion. “Everything’s a lot more local here,” said Samantha Saifer, director of marketing at Chicago Social.
“As much as we’d love to work with brands like Chanel and Gucci, I think it’s a lot more realistic to work with local brands.”
At Chicago Social, editorial photo shoots and fashion shows feature clothing from
smaller fashion lines and the magazine focuses on developing a relationship with the Chicago fashion community.
“It’s about bringing your neighbors to your neighbors,” said Talia Pines, an
account executive at Chicago Social.
At the expense of the magazines
But as blogs become more prevalent, magazines have noticed a decrease in
interest in certain areas. “We still list sales in our calendar section of the magazine, but we miss a lot because we’re not given the sale information as far in advance because stores rely on blogs to get the word out quicker,” said Korey Huyler, editor-in-chief of Chicago Social.
In addition to losing content, magazines are facing the prospect of losing advertisers looking for a quicker, cheaper way to reach a younger and broader audience. “The blogs have certainly become a pivotal source for fashion in Chicago. The blogs are sidestepping the magazines and media world that mostly revolve around paid advertisements,” Hamather said.
Blogs hold a unique position in the industry because of their immediacy and
frugality. It is the old adage, “There’s a little something for everyone.”
This is exactly what advertisers are seeing. While spending on apparel and
accessories increased by 7 percent among affluent consumers from 2009 to 2010,
according to research conducted by American Express, this increase is not nearly as attractive to businesses as the potential of blogs.
According to JupiterResearch, a market research company, corporate spending on online advertisements is expected to reach $4.9 billion in 2011, surpassing the $2.9 billion expected for text advertisements. With the high traffic now directed towards fashion blogs, bloggers such as Creyer are hoping to capitalize on the trend.
Exposure is everything
Just because Chicago’s fashion scene isn’t center stage, does not mean it is not
ever-present. “New York offers immediacy and may add to a bit of ease or complacency, whereas, Chicago has a bit more of a premeditated directive,” Hamather said. “You have to know what you’re looking for.”
To make the community more accessible, the government has taken the city’s
fashion profile into its own hands. Former Mayor Richard M. Daley founded the
Mayor’s Fashion Council Chicago to establish Chicago as a fashion destination and develop a pool of resources for the burgeoning fashion industry. Those in the fashion community say they hope that the governmental support will continue.
“I think first we need exposure and second, the politics of this city need to make people aware of what’s going on,” said Ryan Beshel of the blog, The Bowtie Memoirs. “We have this new mayor now so we’re all just waiting to see what he does.
Mayor Daley did a lot to help elevate fashion in this city but you can’t imagine that’s the first thing Rahm’s going to do.”
Still on the fast track
Despite a smaller fashion scene than New York and Los Angeles, Creyer has no
problem finding subjects for her photos. Even on a day with freezing rain, wind, and snow, Creyer documents the looks of six different people. “It’s hard when everyone is out in those coats that look like sleeping bags. I get it, but I can’t photograph it,” she says.
After four hours of prowling the Gold Coast, Creyer hops on the “L” to
Bucktown. “I have to pick up the dress I wore to the Cynthia Rowley party,” she
mentions.
After hosting the Cynthia Rowley party on Thursday, she still has several other
events to attend before the weekend is up. Even in Chicago, it seems, the fashion scene is as fast paced as it is anywhere.
I went to Rothbury both years, in 2008 and 2009, and I can definitely say that this is the greatest music festival on the circuit. Unlike festivals in hot areas, say Tennessee or California, Northern Michigan pleasantly cools down at night – perfect for dancing until 4 a.m. in the morning.
Hope to see many of you Chicagoans make the trek into the woods!
Visit: ElectricForestFestival.com
EDIT: Additional Video of Rothbury’s Sherwood Forest (now Electric Forest)
And the cops who patrol the festival are super cool, as you can see below. Special thank you to the Michigan State Troopers who did a fantastic job the past two years keeping the public safe and ensuring a good time was had for all! The police and the festivalgoers have a healthy respect for each other, which is critical in making the event a success. At night, they stick glowsticks out of the top of their hats to make themselves easier to spot in case anyone needs help. They are really just there to make sure everyone is safe. The woods make this music festival truly magical, and even the cops send out positive vibes!
