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MA: Let���s talk about local designers. Who are the most exciting designers working in Chicago today? GOLDMAN: I don���t know any other designers who really resemble a Chicago designer and have made it into the world of fashion the way that Creatures of the Wind has. IVON: But there���s a stigma where you stick Chicago on it. What difference does it make where they are? If you���re talented, you can be based anywhere. Most Chicago-based designers don���t want to be here. It���s just that simple. GOLDMAN: I agree, but how could they? We don���t have the room! We���ve never given them a platform or the tools to be able to work here. It���s virtually impossible. IVON: One of my students at Columbia said to me, ���I want to be a pattern cutter.��� And I said, ���Excuse me? Do you know that you will always have a job? Do you realize that you will make a lot of money doing that? Why didn���t it dawn on me that this is what you wanted to do?��� Until we train the people to do the pattern cutting and do the sewing, they all want to be the next Yves Saint Laurent. We have to have the ones who are talented, such as Creatures of the Wind, stay here and build that industry. Until that happens, they���re not going to. CAVE: How do we create some of these jump-start opportunities? Designers want investors, but you���re not going to invest in someone who doesn���t have a track record. How do you create a sort of incubator that allows you to help? GOLDMAN: We don���t need designers in this city. We need manufacturing companies that support them. Once you build that, they will come. ROGERS: It���s the chicken and egg, though���the designers can give the work that they can sell to the manufacturers. GOLDMAN: One of the things that concerns people when they���re investing their money is personality. I want to know that you���re solid, that your heart is in it, that this is something you really love, and that you���re going to stick with it for a very long time. We just had dinner with the mayor, and he said one of the things he���s trying to do is get more manufacturing companies in the city. IVON: Another one of our problems is you can���t buy fabric in America. You have to get it all offshore. These buildings are now sitting derelict, and the kind of money it would take to bring [those] buildings back���well, it���s astronomical. But to bring that manufacturing element back into the city is what we have to do, and that���s humongous. CAVE: Just around this table, we���re all very connected and interested in fashion. Right here is an opportunity to come together. It doesn���t mean that we have to have a humongous factory to get things off the ground, but we have to be pioneers. MA HERE AND BELOW: Models in an Ebony Fashion Fair show circa 1971. WORLD���S FAIR ���Inspiring Beauty: 50 Years of Ebony Fashion Fair��� captures the groundbreaking vision of Eunice W. Johnson. By Meg Mathis With more than 50,000 designs in its collection, the Costume Council of the Chicago History Museum is no stranger to doing things on a grand scale. Starting on March 16, however, the institution outdoes itself with the grand new exhibition ���Inspiring Beauty: 50 Years of Ebony Fashion Fair.��� Featuring 7,000 square feet devoted to 67 garments from the Ebony Fashion Fair costume collection, ���Inspiring Beauty��� is one of the museum���s largest temporary exhibitions to date. Divided into three sections, the show first celebrates the trailblazing spirit of Ebony Fashion Fair director Eunice W. Johnson with ���Vision,��� which includes such haute couture styles as a Christian Dior day coat from Fall/ Winter 1964-65, a fire engine���red Pierre Cardin floor-length, side-revealing tunic from Fall/Winter 1970, and a periwinkle Hubert de Givenchy evening dress and stole from Spring/Summer 1974. ���Innovation��� captures the essence of Johnson Publishing Company���s bold history with eye-catching ready-to-wear looks by Angelo Marani, Balizza, and Emilio Pucci, while ���Power��� highlights Ebony Fashion Fair���s groundbreaking contributions to the fashion industry���think Guy Laroche, Halston, Vivienne Westwood, and Yves Saint Laurent. But Johnson���s heart and soul radiates throughout the entirety of the Ebony Fashion Fair showcase. ���My mother would see individual designers, take a look at their clothes, buy them, and display them on the road because she felt that they were really good,��� says Johnson Publishing Company chairman Linda Johnson Rice. ���And she was really particular���she turned those clothes inside out to make sure [everything] was of the right quality. But she gave them an opportunity. That doesn���t come along anymore.��� ���Inspiring Beauty: 50 Years of Ebony Fashion Fair��� runs March 16, 2013 through January 5, 2014 at Chicago History Museum, 1601 N. Clark St., 312-642-4600; chicagohistory.org PHOTOGRAPHY BY JPC STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER, COURTESY OF JOHNSON PUBLISHING COMPANY (EBONY FASHION FAIR) GOLDMAN: You could have had a different style than she did. JOHNSON RICE: I think I was a little more edgy than she was. I think the generations are different. She was a very Southern woman from Alabama. Everything was completely put together, from the hair to the nails. In that era, there was no rushing out the door. She would be late to catch an airplane, and my father would say to her, ���Eunice, wouldn���t it be better to be half-dressed and make the plane?��� She would say, ���I���m going for fully dressed; we���ll get the next one.��� [Laughs] GOLDMAN: When Hamish Bowles came to Chicago, he said, ���I have to do one thing, but I want to do three things: I want to see your store, see your parents��� collection, and see Leslie Hindman���s Ebony tag sale, and I have to buy something.��� And I said, ���Why? What does the ���have to��� mean?��� He said, ���Because it���s Eunice W. Johnson.��� 112 MICHIGANAVEMAG.COM 106-113_MA_FEAT_Culture_Spring13 copy.indd 112 2/8/13 2:29 PM