The Chicago Reader, the alternatively weekly newspaper of Chicago, has featured an event created by a participant in Landmark’s Self-Expression and Leadership Program – a unique ‘Museum of Streetwear’ two day exhibition. Here’s an excerpt from that story:
“Streetwear in Chicago” evokes such names as Leaders 1354, Jugrnaut, Joe Freshgoods of Fat Tiger Workshop, and Virgil Abloh. These brands and individuals carry the torch internationally for Chicago streetwear, but while the titans are making their waves, there is a bubbling undercurrent of designers whose creative work brings definition to the city’s fashion scene. It is in that undercurrent that Amanda Harth, founder of the online fashion resource Runwayaddicts, stumbled upon the inspiration for the Museum of Streetwear.
The Museum of Streetwear, a two-day pop-up in East Garfield Park, is a first-of-its-kind exhibition that aims to bring attention to a Chicago streetwear scene that is teeming with creative designs and ideas. “I’ve always been drawn more towards exhibitions and presentations as opposed to traditional runway shows,” Harth says. “I don’t think a [fashion] market here needs runway shows or a fashion week. They need something that allows them to interact and lets them explore things.”
The idea for a museum dedicated to streetwear came in a most unlikely way, as Harth tells it: in April she was nearing the end of a self-expression and leadership course at the Landmark Forum—a personal and professional growth, training, and development program—and she was required to come up with a final community project. “We had to come up with projects by the end of the day for this program, and I just made it up on the spot. Everyone thought it sounded cool, and I was just like, ‘All right, we’ll see how cool it really is,'” she says. “I’m creating this with the goal of connecting communities that are fashion focused and creatively focused in Chicago. I want us to come together to talk about building something here. For this weekend, I want to get as many people in fashion in one space to start that conversation.”
Read the full story at the Chicago Reader.
