Michigan Avenue - Niche Media - Michigan Avenue magazine is a luxury lifestyle magazine centered around Chicago’s finest people, events, fashion, health & beauty, fine dining & more!
Issue link: http://digital.greengale.com/i/461818
photography by heather talbert Style and SubStance From Fashion to philanthropy, ChiCago designer BarBara Bates has established herselF as one oF ChiCago's ChiCest leaders. by seth putnam For a woman who never learned to use a needle and thread, Chicago designer Barbara Bates has built an impressive fashion empire. "I never actually sewed," she says with a laugh. "My skills were sketching and knowing what fabric could do once I got my hands on it." Those skills have been more than enough. In her 29 -year career, Bates has dressed a who's-who list of celebrities, including Michael Jordan, Oprah Winfrey, and most recently, Diana Rauner, Illinois' new first lady. And now the designer is grabbing headlines as a philanthropist. A breast cancer survivor, Bates recently pledged that her eponymous charitable organization would raise $500,000 for Mount Sinai Hospital in her home neighborhood of North Lawndale. Taking a late lunch in her South Loop studio on a frosty late-January afternoon, she ref lects that none of Barbara Bates, photographed here in her Chicago studio, has incorporated charitable giving into her business plan. continued on page 68 michiganavemag.com 67 PeoPle View from the Top