It was unseasonably chilly in the basement of Christopher Peters and Shane Gabier’s Humboldt Park two-flat—or maybe it just seemed that way, since they were unpacking clothes and accessories from the 2009 spring/summer collection of their line, Creatures of the Wind. Some of them looked a little worse for wear—straw hats smooshed, fringe tangled—but the men were unfazed. The items had just come back from a New York photo shoot for W magazine, the monthly Conde Nast fashion glossy, which has slated a profile of the designers for March. That’s considerable editorial coverage for a brand that’s less than a year old.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
To build credibility and momentum on a national scale, the two were careful from the outset to control their brand and image, which for them meant eschewing runway shows, big parties—and the growing local industry. For their Los Angeles debut, they showed at the studio of designer Jasmin Shokrian, a friend of Gabier’s from his student days, and invited fewer than a dozen guests, a select mix of boutique owners.
While in LA, the designers attended a party sponsored by Vogue at Getty House, the mayoral mansion, where they put Shokrian in a black-and-white version of their wrap jacket. Publicity “is the only reason I would go to a party like that,” Gabier admits. “I’m not there for the social aspect.” It worked: the cape caught the eye of Kim Friday, an editor for Women’s Wear Daily, the bible to the trade, who asked for their contact information. When the publication sent a writer out to cover the annual SAIC fashion show, she interviewed Gabier and Peters for W, WWD‘s consumer-oriented sister publication, as well.
Gabier, a Michigan native, and Peters, who’s from New Jersey, don’t even necessarily want to be known as Chicago designers. “We’re not anti-Chicago, we’re not pro-Chicago. It’s where we live, we like it here, we have good jobs here,” Gabier says. But “it’s too easy to put everybody under this umbrella—it kind of insinuates this shared aesthetic or progression.” The two would consider participating in a local event “if it makes sense,” but for now, “our time and money is better spent in New York.” For that city’s fall fashion week, they organized another small but selective event, transforming a friend’s Lower East Side apartment into a showroom and booking appointments with reps from a handful of boutiques and media outlets. They’ll take a similar tack during the fall 2009 ready-to-wear shows this March in Paris, asking European press and retailers to a showroom in the Marais.
