How does fashion thread through generations?
Chicago Style
Features
By Martin Matsuyuki Krause
Read Time 3 minutes
August 19, 2024
On July 26th, Illinois Humanities and the South Side Home Movie Project launched Chicago Style, a multidimensional exploration of Black fashion on Chicago’s South Side from the 1930s to the 80s. Part of Art Design Chicago, Chicago Style uses the power of design to unite South Side home movies, fashion archives, personal narratives, and community legacies to stitch the past with our present.
The project will culminate with a fashion show directed by AnnMarie Brown and EdVetté Jones and the debut of a film curated and scored by Ayana Contreras on September 21st from 3:00 to 6:00 p.m. CST at the Green Line Performing Arts Center.
The Chicago Style Cohort members, listed clockwise, are Karen Jenkins, Linda Pitts, KJ Turnage, Nicole Bond, and Linford Vaughn. (Shot on film by Han Teverbaugh.)
Still from the Ramon Williams Collection. (Courtesy of South Side Home Movie Project.)
Chicago Style brings together a five-person cohort of intergenerational community members with diverse expertise and backgrounds in fashion.
The members of the Chicago Style Cohort began their journey by exploring several fashion archives, then transitioned to capturing photos and videos that document their own style — creating a contemporary archive of Chicago’s style today.
Through the program, the Cohort is examining their relationships to fashion, community, and time, interpreting these threads into looks for the fashion show as well as a digital media series.
Here’s more on what they’ve been up to:
Local Archive Dive
The Cohort and staff gather at the Stony Island Arts Bank to discuss style and legacy, sitting on furniture from the Johnson Publishing Company — publisher of the famed Jet and Ebony magazines and known for its cutting-edge sense of style. The Bank, once a hub of Black wealth on the South Side, is now stewarded by the Rebuild Foundation and houses several Black archives including a library, furniture pieces, and art collections from the Johnson Publishing Company.
Saroop Singh, former Assistant Director of the South Side Home Movie Project (SSHMP), presented to the Cohort the story behind SSHMP, how to navigate its vast digital archive, and a new donation of footage, the Ramon Williams Collection — see some stills from it below — which will help to compose the film that Ayana Contreras is curating and scoring for the September 21st film and fashion show.
Stills from the Ramon Williams Collection, courtesy of South Side Home Movie Project
Archives serve as crucial repositories of our cultural and artistic heritage, preserving the stories and creativity that define our communities and inspire future generations to come.
By partnering with the South Side Home Movie Project, the cohort's been able to access one of the nation's largest archives of Black home movies to help bring their reimagining of Black fashion on Chicago's south side to life.
For more information on the Ramon Williams Collection, please visit the South Side Home Movie Project's Ramon Williams Collection.
Ayana Contreras, journalist, radio host, DJ, curator, collector, and author of Energy Never Dies: Afro-Optimism and Creativity in Chicago, presented to the Cohort on her research and collection of 20th-century fashion items.
Donning a brown 1950s gown with black tulle peeking out of the bottom, Ayana toured the Cohort through decades of Black fashion history and discussed timeless design, trends, the economics of fashion, body positivity, fast fashion, and more.
Making an Archive of Today
Han Teverbaugh captures portraits of the Cohort on film.
The Cohort sat down for a taped group interview about their relationships to clothing over time and Chicago’s sense of style. When asked what the idea of Chicago style means to them, Cohort member Nicole Bond noted that Chicago style “is where revolution and migration meet.”
Past & Present, Shop & Style
The Cohort shopped at South Side vintage and thrift stores for their runway looks. Over the course of the afternoon, they visited A Lotta Good Stuff, Village Discount Outlet, So Happy You’re Here, and Unique. Sifting through stores that act as their own kind of community archive of Chicago’s style, each Cohort member found several pieces to wear for the fashion show.
Stay up to date on all things Chicago Style here.
We hope that you’ll join us for the Chicago Style Film & Fashion Show on September 21st from 3:00 to 6:00 p.m. CST at the Green Line Performing Arts Center. See the looks, experience the history, and dress up!
Chicago Style is part of Art Design Chicago, a citywide collaboration and series of exhibitions and events that highlight the voices and stories that are part of Chicago’s unique artistic heritage and creative communities.
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