Collections, like Artystri Designs seen here, included themes of diversity and inclusion for fashion in Chicago, Illinois.

 

Bright lights and upbeat music welcomed fashion goers to Chicago Fashion Week, where six designers produced 140 pieces on the themes of sustainability, urban and streetwear, which was held on Oct. 16 at Water Tower Place.

 

When entering the fashion show space, which was on the third floor of the mall, audience members were taken in by The Marketplace, where up-and-coming brands sold pieces from their collections. Angels and Anglez, a designer in The Marketplace, states that their goal in designing is to give “different angles to different angels because you can look at someone this way and somebody could look at them totally different.”

 

After shopping around, The Marketplace leads into the show, where audience members search for seats in fully packed rows of chairs along the runway. Tony Long, of Chicago, Illinois, is the CEO of the fashion week’s production company FashionBar LLC and host of this event. He shared that Chicago Fashion Week, which is in its fifth year, is one of the first and only Chicago fashion events where they prioritize diversity and inclusion. 

 

Long states that the goal of this event is “creating value within every human being so they can understand how they can contribute to an ecosystem called a fashion industry in Chicago.” Due to the pandemic and riots in 2020, Long feels that the fashion industry in Chicago needs identity and strength.

 

Designer Bryon Matysek, creator of Free of Fear, started the event off with their collection on urban and sustainability using “rescued fire hoses normally scrapped by fire houses across the USA,” stated via their website. They started the show with smoke and firefighter calls to introduce the collection.

 

On sustainability of materials within Free of Fear’s collection, audience member Lily Dahlberg, 20, from Grayslake, Illinois, feels that being eco-friendly “means choosing to care more about the planet than what you’re wearing.”

 

Rose Fashion Design followed Free of Fear, where they incorporated urban and streetwear into their women’s fall and winter outerwear. After a performance by Chicago-based artist Drew The Kidd, Artystri Designs showed their gender-inclusive, eco-friendly, street bridalwear. In total, their collection of more than 20 pieces “aimed to solve the problem of conformity and repetition” in fashion, states their website. 

 

Annette Sunshine Designs was next in the event, where designer Sunshine creates “funky and unique” urban outerwear items. These pieces wowed Dahlberg who thought her jackets were “pretty cool.” Larquise Riley’s brand, Alamanni Designs, was the second-to-last collection, where their 90s theme brings compassion for humanities into their brand.

 

Following a performance by local singer PMARTT, the final designer, i sKream Kulture, showed their collection based on mental health influenced by the West Side of Chicago. With three young children opening the collection, the crowd was drawn into the importance of mental health for younger generations.

 

For future Chicago Fashion Weeks, FashionBar LLC is striving to keep “[infusing] value and opportunity so that [they] can lift [their] brothers and sisters up and ensure they have an opportunity going forward in their life, living their truth and their identity and sustaining who they are as human beings.”