ML - Michigan Avenue

2015 - Issue 1 - Spring

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!

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photography by heather talbert Style pointS: Fashion figure Barbara Bates shares some of her personal inspirations. Design icons: "My mom and my sister provided the frst real fashion I saw. They had it all. For all the negative things that were going on with race in the early '60s, I was only seeing beauty." Thoroughly chicago: "I think Chicago is such a world-class city. I've lived in Detroit, and I visit New York regularly, and there's simply no compari- son. There's something for everyone here." BesT aDvice: "My mother used to say, 'A hard head makes a soft ass.' I always listen, even to my grandkids. They're full of wisdom." WhaT i'm WaTching: "My favorite: The Walking Dead. And it has nothing to do with the zombies; it has to do with survival. I think that's what life is: What will I do next in my business so I can be here another day?" her successes have been easily won. From the strug- gles of teen pregnancy to an all-out war against breast cancer, there has been no respite. But that seems to suit Bates' position de guerre just fine. "I'm a take-it-by-the-horns kind of girl," she says. "I don't let things that are scary shut me down." Born on the South Side and raised in Garfield Park, Bates likes to say that her career began in a bathroom. She got an unexpected start in 1986 while working as a secretary at the First National Bank of Chicago. Her colleagues, drawn to her funky look, which included suedes, leathers, and other "exotic" materials that were rarely used back then, asked her to design clothing for them. On her lunch breaks, she would take the women's mea- surements in the ladies' room and deliver their new clothes to them within a few weeks. Eventually she quit her bank job and, at the age of 31, set out on the path that would lead her to the top of Chicago's fashion world. "I didn't put together a business plan," she says. "I love to f ly by the seat of my pants, which is not necessarily a good thing. It's just how I operate. I've always been my best salesperson." If jumping in with both feet was how she began, it remains her modus operandi today. In fact, when she received a call from an old classmate who asked if she was the Barbara Bates "who'd had a baby in high school," Bates replied, "I am. What's it to you?" The woman then explained that she was now working with at-risk teens, and asked if Bates would come and speak to them. "It was the most devastating time I could remember, being a pregnant teen," Bates says. "I cried the whole nine months." Despite her fears, however, Bates agreed to speak to the group, and when she found herself standing in front of a room full of pregnant girls, her nervous- ness disappeared. "I didn't want to make them think I was a rich, successful person trying to tell them nonsense," she says. "I was exactly like them, just an older version." She felt proud to have shared her story for the first time, and she stopped being embarrassed about having been a teenage mother. "I told them, 'If you go back to school once you have your baby, I'll make your prom dress,'" Bates says. And that promise led to the beginning of the Barbara Bates Foundation, which, since 1999, has supplied more than 500 dresses and 200 suits to needy high school students. When Bates was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2010, the Foundation's focus shifted slightly, lead- ing to its sponsorship of a fashion show featuring 50 models, all of whom also had the disease. The event brought in $50,000, which Bates put toward her $500,000 pledge for Mount Sinai Hospital. She's nearing the finish line now, only $90,000 away from her goal. As age becomes a factor for Bates—she turns 60 in June—she's all about focusing on the future. "My mind doesn't know, but the wrinkles do!" she jokes. "I have to work smarter, because I know I don't have as much ahead of me as I have behind." However, it is Bates' design philosophy, which prizes hard work, creativity, and above all, instinct, that keeps her ahead of the rising generation of young designers nipping at her heels. "That saying, 'Youth is wasted on the young' is so true!" she says. But there is one thing that sets Bates apart from the younger generation: name recognition. "My grand- mother told me that sometimes people buy you first, then they buy your product. I didn't know what she meant at the time, but now I do." MA Sketches and swatches for the spring collection (left), which Bates has transformed into pieces that are prominently displayed in her South Loop studio. 68  michiganavemag.com PEOPLE View from the Top

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