Journalist, Author & Syndicated Columnist
Angelique Thomas is shopping for more than a new jacket at Sears. She is in search of a streamlined look that will help her land a new job. Thomas, 30, was one of five local women participating in Sears’ Fashion Takes Action program, which kicked off Tuesday in Chicago. The program pairs women making a transition into the workplace with fashion experts. Sears provides each participant with two business-appropriate outfits, as well as cosmetics.
Rocker bottom shoes. You’ve seen them on the runways, in fashion magazines and on display in your favorite department stores.
Let’s face it. Most of us don’t have the genetic makeup (or the trainers and stylists) to look as good as Courteney Cox, Heather Locklear or Jennifer Love Hewitt do on their TV shows. But thanks to a couple of savvy West Coast designers, we can accessorize like the stars with some fabulously affordable and hot jewelry.
Although she was the subject of the film “Backbeat” and was engaged to a member of arguably the most famous band in rock history, Astrid Kirchherr is a relative unknown in America. But Beatles fans worldwide equate her name with the German beauty who stole Stuart Sutcliffe’s heart and who took enigmatic photos of the Fab Four when they were still a scrappy quintet.
Aesop Rhim’s love affair with Chicago began 30 years ago when he immigrated from Seoul, South Korea, to earn his master’s degree at IIT’s Institute of Design. Since then, he has had six one-man shows, all about Chicago. “I strive to express my love and vision of Chicago,” said Rhim, who cites Picasso as his biggest influence. “The uniqueness of my work is the interchange of my profession (commercial art) and my expressionist art.” Rhim’s abstract silk-screened work has won the 60-year-old artist some high-powered supporters. Former Gov. Jim Thompson is a fan, as is Mayor Daley, who proclaimed Sept. 20, 1995, “Aesop Rhim Day.”
South Korean artist Sung Hee Cho got her first taste of art when she was 6. Her father bought her water-based paints and taught her to draw Asian characters on delicate rice paper. By junior high school, Cho decided her preference leaned more toward Western art and set her sights on America. Cho didn’t immigrate into the United States right away. She earned a master’s degree in fine arts from the prestigious Ewha Women’s University before relocating to America 16 years ago.
Frank Lindner was too young to buy a copy of Playboy at most stores when he went to work as the magazine’s art historian. Before leaving his teens, he had worked his way into a job that sounds like every man’s fantasy come to life. Today, the 22-year-old bachelor is works as a free-lance art director and illustrator for the Limelight nightclub. His latest work – a series of sensual murals dubbed “Erotic Haze” – is on exhibit through October at the Limelight, 632 N. Dearborn.