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���I don���t think Chicago has ever really been second-class when it comes to fashion. I think we���ve been more understated.��� ���LINDA JOHNSON RICE fearless, and that just builds my armor to proceed in a world that is led by creative people. It���s all about design; it���s all about dress; it���s all about a look. We all think about that when we power-dress���getting ready to go into a meeting to get down and dirty, I���m not wearing blue jeans. You know what I���m saying? JOHNSON RICE: There���s a lot of innovative design that comes out of Chicago. The School of the Art Institute, the students there���lord knows those fashion shows, they couldn���t be more innovative. Then you have Columbia College Chicago. There���s a great deal of fashion energy and enthusiasm that is really exciting. Ikram, you studied at the foot of the master, Joan Weinstein, at [legendary Chicago boutique] Ultimo. She was unbelievably chic and she had a tremendous clientele���and this is decades ago���who are now with you, and their kids and daughters are with you. So I don���t think that Chicago has ever really been second-class when it comes to fashion. I think we���ve been more understated. But not everything is so demure and laid-back. I look around on the street and there are a lot of edgy folks out here. And it���s good; it���s fun. GOLDMAN: In this city, there���s no way you���re going to say that people aren���t dressing. We bought the fashion. We sold the fashion. Even when I go to the showroom and I buy a couture piece off the runway, they say to me, ���Who���s going to buy it? And where���s this person going to wear it?��� Desir��e bought this Rodarte dress and wore it to a party for just 12 people. That is a couture dress���it could have been worn in front of 1,000 people and it could have been her wedding���but she wore it for a sit-down dinner party. So it���s what makes you feel great. BRENDA SHAPIRO: It wasn���t always like that. MA: How have things changed? SHAPIRO: I came from New York in 1967, and I thought I���d died. I was 30 years old; my life was over, and I had to live in this little town. That���s how I felt. IKRAM: Chicago was a little town? SHAPIRO: I came from Tulsa, Oklahoma, and I got all the way to New York, and that���s where I wanted to stay. Then I came here, and I had a mother-in-law who was as chic as anyone could possibly be. She wore a lot of Chanel���always looked like a million dollars. I could never dress like my mother-in-law... but I knew that I had to find my own style, and Ultimo provided that playpen of dress. It was the most amazing experience. And I do think that my generation, coming of age, began to think that you didn���t have to dress absolutely gorgeous, but you could have your own style and express yourself. MA: Let���s talk about the ���70s in Chicago, the era of Soul Train and Mahogany, when Chicago became a capital of urban fashion for America. How do you think that came about? GOLDMAN: Joan Weinstein. JOHNSON RICE: She put Chicago on the map. GOLDMAN: Even today, when I���m on the road and I go on the buys in New York, Europe, anywhere in the world���when I say ���Chicago,��� any fashion person will say ���Joan Weinstein, Ultimo.��� When Joan Weinstein was alive and we would travel together, people would bow to her. True story: We were in New York City, getting out of the car, and she looks up, and she stops. Her hesitation for a millisecond���I was like, Why did she do that? I looked over, and out of the corner of my eye I see a woman walking by. Joan gets up, and we���re walking together, and both women curtsy to each other and keep walking. It was Jackie Kennedy and Joan Weinstein. [Laughter] This was the power of Joan Weinstein in New York City: Jackie Kennedy stopped dead in her tracks watching Joan Weinstein get out of the car. Joan used to tell me stories about when she discovered designers like Sonia Rykiel back in the ���70s. Joan would say to me, ���When I first bought Sonia Rykiel sweaters������and they were the ���kookiest,��� was the word she used������there would be a line on Saturday morning out the door.��� She brought Sonia Rykiel, Armani.... She was the first person to bring Armani to America. Barneys picked it up second. SHAPIRO: Ultimo was the first store in Chicago where people in their 70s would shop, and people in their 20s would shop, and we would all be in that dressing room together half-undressed. That was another thing: No one anywhere would be in a dressing room where you���d literally come out to look at how you look. CAVE: For those of us who couldn���t do Ultimo and were 17 and didn���t have the means to shop at that level, it was Ebony magazine. It was Ebony Fashion Fair. That was the way I could connect to this broad range of dress, style, savviness, power, and it just cultivated this amazing sort of confidence and way of dress that filtered into the way I dress today. How do we mix hip-hop with��� JOHNSON RICE: Haute couture. CAVE: We���re kind of clashing it together, and that���s how we���re curating our new wardrobe. Go with a sneaker, a Yohji Yamamoto skirt, and a Chanel jacket, and it will be fly. GOLDMAN: Linda, I���m sure you hear this all the time: God love your mother [Eunice W. Johnson]. For her to outright buy these pieces... JOHNSON RICE: It definitely was major.... She was incredibly tenacious. I would never want to sit across the table and barter with her. I watched her in Paris; I watched her in Yves Saint Laurent���all these places. I can���t tell you how they negotiated with anyone else, but she had to bring her checks with her. She would pull out a check, and they had given her the price on this dress, and my mother���s sitting there going, ���mmm-hmm, mmm-hmm,��� and she pulls out a check and starts to write it. I���m sitting there not saying a word. She folds the check up and puts it back in her purse, and she says, ���I don���t believe I like that price,��� gets up, and leaves. ���Linda, come on, we���re going.��� Out the door we go! We go back to the hotel room [and there���s a call]: ���Oh, come back in, Madame Johnson, we have a special price for you.��� She was tough. She took no prisoners on anything. But if it meant walking away, she���d walk away, and that was the way she was in life. GOLDMAN: So, what was she like when you were growing up with her in terms of your dressing? JOHNSON RICE: [Laughs] She never had an unexpressed opinion, but she sort of let me do my thing. But I love clothes. The apple didn���t fall far from the tree. MICHIGANAVEMAG.COM 106-113_MA_FEAT_Culture_Spring13 copy.indd 111 111 2/8/13 2:28 PM