Chic Chicago

Chic Chicago: Couture Treasures from the Chicago History Museum

September 27, 2008–July 26, 2009

Chic Chicago offers a rare opportunity to see more than 60 of the greatest couture treasures from the Chicago History Museum’s collection.

The exhibition will feature creations ranging from Gilded Age gowns by Worth and Pingat to modern masterpieces by Chanel and Versace. The exhibition is a testimony to Chicago women of style who supported innovative fashion designers in the hope of claiming Chicago as chic. Fashion, they believed, was the most dramatic way to re-imagine Chicago as a sophisticated and cultured city. By purchasing and wearing couture fashion, these women aspired to overcome the city’s image as a gritty, industrial, working-class metropolis and its negative reputation as hog butcher to the world, gangland, and the second city.

This must-see exhibition will display some of the most significant pieces that helped shape fashion history.

© Chicago History Museum
www.chicagohistory.org/chic

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items are from between 21 May 2008 & 07 Apr 2009.