THE HERON POST presents THE ARTS

July 23, 2026 | Chicago

Mick Jagger wore one of her scarves on stage at Soldier Field. Michelle Obama wore her designs to the White House. And for 35 years, Maria Pinto has built a fashion label in a city most people don't associate with fashion at all.

 That contradiction — a design career forged in Chicago instead of New York or Paris — sat at the center of a recent Curio Tastemaker Talk & Reception titled "The History of Chicago Fashion," a look back at an era when this city rivaled the best.

The panel brought together designer Maria Pinto, fashion educator and former city fashion director Melissa Gamble, and WBEZ Curious City host Erin Allen, whose reporting on Chicago's fashion history inspired the event. 

Maria, marking her 35th year as a Chicago designer, launched her namesake collection in 1991 after an internship in New York under womenswear designer Geoffrey Beene, whose focus on tailoring and minimalist construction still shapes her work. 

She dressed Michelle Obama in 2007, joined the Council of Fashion Designers of America in 2009, and later launched a second line, M2057, in 2013. She trained at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, which gave her its "Legends of Fashion" award in 2009 and an honorary doctorate in 2017. 

"It isn't easy being in Chicago and being in fashion," Maria said, reflecting on a career built largely outside the traditional fashion capitals. Still, she's learned to expect reinvention along the way: "Every decade, get ready because of the shift," she said. 

Melissa ran the city's first official fashion week, Chicago Fashion Focus, as fashion arts director from 2005 to 2010 and helped launch the Chicago Fashion Incubator at Macy's on State Street. 

Erin's WBEZ piece, "Like NYC and Paris, Chicago was once a hub for fashion designers," traced the industry's rise, decline and resurgence, including Fashion Week's 2024 relaunch.

The Chicago fashion story continues. 

And it is evident that Chicago's scene runs on relationships and admiration between designers and customers as much as the store displays and runway moments.