Shopping in Winnetka

Two ensembles—one for going out, one for staying in—that celebrate the glitz and glamour of the holiday. Every December 31, Chicago’s streets awaken from a post-Yuletide coma, flooding with revelers celebrating the last big party of the year. Although it’s less important than who you’ll spend it with, where you choose to ring in the New Year is what really sets the tone. This year, Chicagoans can groove to a DJ set at the Riviera Theatre by local heroes Flosstradamus or make their first new friends of 2014 at a cocktail party at Roof, theWit’s rooftop bar. Those who prefer a homespun soiree can invite pals over for the 22nd annual Countdown Chicago special on ABC7, which will broadcast live from the Palmer House’s exquisite digs. But whether you stay in or go out, celebrate the glamour of the holiday by indulging in an ensemble that’s as shimmery as the ball that drops at midnight. The Look: Going Out This strappy, midi sequin dress embodies the glitz of New Year’s, but in an elegant, knee-length silhouette. Nude pumps effortlessly elongate the legs, and skull earrings add a modern edge, as does a biker jacket in an unexpected shade of bottle green. 1. Sequin dress; ASOS ($81.67) 2. Bottle-green leather jacket; Muubaa ($622.34) 3. Nude pumps; New Look ($29.22) 4. Gold clutch; Francesca’s ($34) 5. Cuff bracelet; Cold Picnic ($99) 6. Skull earrings; Modcloth ($10.99) The Look: Staying In Though it’s still quite eye-catching, this sleek jumpsuit is much more comfortable than a party dress. To keep it from looking overly casual, pair it with an extravagant gold blazer and these mid-heel pumps, both of which match the glamorous, celebratory mood. 1. Navy jumpsuit; Edith Hart ($168) 2. Gold blazer; Zadig & Voltaire ($495) 3. Mid-heel pumps; ASOS ($72.60) 4. Cross-body clutch; Lori’s Shoes ($148.95) 5. Black onyx earrings; Alexis Bittar ($395) 6. Gold necklace; Laura Lombardi ($40)

The chair known throughout Central America as a Belize chair is in essence a wooden folding chair. Two sets of slender beams, one forming the seat and the other forming the back, interlock at the hinge of the seat. Some look at the long swoop of the chair and see something like half of a wooden hammock. When she first encountered it in a rural region of El Salvador, Emily Prendergast saw opportunity. “I remember thinking, ‘That chair right there. That’s amazing.’ I had never seen anything like it,” she says. It was the summer of 2011, and Emily was touring the Salvadoran department (similar to a county) of Sonsonate with her brother Brian, who was working in the country at a US-based power company. The handmade wares they kept finding at roadside stations captivated them, as did the work ethic of the artisans producing them. “You drive around the countryside and … it’s an extremely rural area, with a fair amount of poverty and people just kind of living off the basics,” Brian says. “They’re all pretty entrepreneurial, because that’s how they make their living—trying to do or make different things.” Brian and Emily were feeling enterprising themselves. The two had floated the idea of starting a business together years earlier, and now the time seemed right. Brian, a fluent Spanish speaker with an MBA in international business, had grown to love living in El Salvador, and Emily had recently quit her job at Crate & Barrel to find more fulfilling work. They agreed that the chair, as well as other items they’d seen being sold roadside in Sonsonate, would be well received by US buyers. So they approached the Gonzalez family who owned the shop, bought a handful of chairs, and promised they would be back. Conception of Maya Mueble It wasn't until the following summer that the two of them made a return trip to Sonsonate. In the intervening year they had developed the concept for their business, which by then they were calling Maya Mueble: an online storefront devoted to the furniture and home goods being made by hand in El Salvador. The first thing they did was go straight back to that roadside shop. “I’m sure that after a year had gone by they didn’t expect us to show up on their doorstep,” says Emily. But the Gonzalezes were thrilled to see the Prendergasts again. “They literally blessed each of us for like, five minutes each,” Emily says. The Maya Mueble concept quickly expanded during this trip, as the siblings traveled into San Sebastian, an area known for textile production. Here, they met the Portillos, a family that lives and works on a compound full of looms they’ve built themselves. Emily and Brian bought enough of the Portillos’ textiles to fill several garbage bags, later just barely making it back through customs because of suitcases that were pushing the 50-pound limit. Once back in the United States, they rifled through everything they had brought back and began choosing which items they wanted to commission more of for the website. Speaking Different Languages It wasn't long before the difficulties of running an international venture such as theirs became apparent. For instance, though Brian is fluent in Spanish, the two were still stymied by communication barriers when developing product designs with the Gonzalez and Portillo families. “We use so many different [design] terms here,” Emily says. “You say, ‘Make it look organic,’ and they’re like, ‘What?’ Then you realize that’s a ridiculous thing to ask someone who lives on the side of a hill.” She recalls another occasion where they suggested creating wooden flatware, an idea that didn't connect with the Gonzalezes. They eat with their hands. The availability of natural resources also complicates production at times, as does the month-long span it takes for pieces to ship from El Salvador to Chicago (things first go by boat to San Francisco, then by rail to Illinois). Another issue at first: setting quality expectations. “They were used to selling things just to make ends meet,” Brian says, and not always engrossed in making things perfect. But the craftsmanship was there, so the adjustments were mostly minor ones; Emily recalled requests such as changing capped bolts on the chairs to pegs that would be flush with the surface. The Maya Mueble Collection Communication issues aside, the Prendergasts have been able to curate a remarkable collection of furniture and home decor, each piece of which is made intricately by hand (and sometimes also by foot: click here to see a video of one of the Portillos looming a blanket in a process Emily likened to playing an organ). Of course, the Comoda chair—their take on the Belize chair that so captivated Emily—is their signature piece, even serving as the Maya Mueble logo. The Gonzalezes build the chair from teak, a wood Emily adores for its imperfections, which give each chair its own unique size and grain. Textiles are the bulk of the collection, and range from the colorful San Sebastian throws (woven blankets that come in geometric color patterns) to the minimalist Santa Ana tea towels (swathes of white linen crossed by a few thin lines of red, green, and blue). Considering the effort that’s gone into these pieces, it’s not surprising that Emily has become rather attached to them. She was sad about selling their original table runner to a man in New York. “It’s such a bittersweet thing when the original pieces are selling, because I have such a love for them. It’s like, ‘Goodbye, friend!'” She frowns, but only for a moment. “But there will be more,” she says with a smile. What’s Next After only a year in business, Maya Mueble’s presence has grown significantly, with the company opening booths at the gallerias in Andersonville and Evanston and making appearances at events such as Square Roots and the Chicago Flea Market. By next year, Emily hopes to be manning a brick-and-mortar shop in Ravenswood or elsewhere on the North Side. The founders are working to expand their supply base as well. A women’s co-op in Guatemala is currently working on rugs from Emily’s own designs, and the siblings hope to follow some potential leads in Peru, Bolivia, and Colombia. They have also started talking with woodworkers who live just down the road from the Gonzalezes about making teak tabletops from kiln-dried wood. The reason for expanding in this way is not just to diversify the company’s inventory, but also to make the company a driver of sustainable economic growth. Brian says he hopes the business can “get a lot of different people involved that can make a living off of it … and help some people grow organically, as opposed to just giving them money.” If the business continues to succeed, it will be because Emily and Brian are so comfortable deferring to each other’s strengths. “She’s the one who’s done most of the work and developed the creative end of it,” Brian says about his sister. “I’m not good at any of the stuff that she does.” Meanwhile Brian gets credit for his analytical mind and business sense, not to mention his love for Latin American culture, which drives the company. “[Brian] was really passionate about starting this business,” Emily says. “Without him, this would be nothing.”

Drift Eyewear didn’t need customs clearance or overseas cargo ships to create its latest line of designer eyeglasses. The local river diver the company found on Craigslist would do the trick, thank you very much. Drift sent its diver to the Mississippi River with a single mission: swim to the bottom and salvage the large trunks of cypress wood that had sunk en route to the sawmills 100 years ago. After the wood was rescued from the river, Drift transported it from the Delta to its studio in Chicago’s West Loop. The cypress trunks followed the same northern route as America’s early blues musicians—musicians who also used to perform at the very logging camps where the cypress trunks originated. These parallels did not go unnoticed: “The wood and music both traveled the river,” owner Chris Mantz told me. Drift celebrated this symmetry by using the reclaimed cypress in a new line of eyeglasses, which it named the Delta Blues Collection. This tale of American manufacturing—a cocktail of US history, culture, and industry—was just one of many I heard at the Chicago outpost of the Northern Grade pop-up market, a traveling fashion bazaar featuring US-made men’s goods. I spoke with a number of designers at Northern Grade about their goods and why they chose to make them in America. Their reasoning ranged from craftsmanship and creative control to matters of the economy and personal ethics. While Drift champions America’s raw materials and the stories they tell, Mark Paigen, the owner of Osmium, cited living wages for employees and job creation as arguments for keeping things stateside. Dawn Yanagihara, the creative director of Kiriko, spoke of the “attention to detail and quality that you don’t get with overseas productions.” And Ryan L. Hansen of Duluth Pack, a company that’s been handcrafting luggage in the US since 1882, has witnessed firsthand the fruits of overseeing your own production: “We get bags that come back from the 1920s and '30s for repair,” he said. Sculptor Shirt ($128) and Conductor’s Vest ($128) by Osmium Owner Mark Paigen referred to the Sculptor shirt as Osmium’s “answer to the standard white dress shirt.” The variegated texture of the shirt, which is made from fine Japanese textiles, lends it detail and dimension that elevates it above your traditional oxford. The conductor’s vest, meanwhile, is made from a limited-edition deadstock material.  “When it’s gone, it’s gone,” Paigen said of the piece, which features a front made from fine Italian wool, a back from 100% cotton twill, and an inside lined with Japanese shirting fabric. Although it’s cut from a traditional men’s suit vest pattern, flourishes such as the antique metal buttons and functional welded pockets lend it a casual air. Scoutmaster Laptop Bag in Wax Canvas ($220) by Duluth Pack Ryan L. Hansen of Duluth Pack, a 131-year-old Minnesota-based luggage company, refers to the Laptop Scoutmaster Bag as a “trail-to-road” pack: “You can go camping or hiking, get home, throw your computer in it, go to class, go to school, go to work.” He also said it’s a viable bicycling bag because it “rides pretty high and close to the body, so it doesn’t get in the way.” The paraffin wax–coated canvas also makes it water resistant. And like all of Duluth Pack’s goods, instead of being made from piecework, the Scoutmaster was handcrafted from beginning to end by a single sewer—Julie, in the case of the bag shown above, who hand-signed her name and the date on the inside tag. Neckties ($89) by Kiriko Kiriko’s crafters submerse Japanese Boro fabrics, which are 50–100 years old, in indigo dye an astonishing 300 times by hand to achieve the desired color of these neckties. Creative director Dawn Yanagihara referred to this as “a craft or art form that’s lost its practicality in a modern context.” But Kiriko is keeping the practice alive in its Portland, Oregon, studio, where the laborious dyeing process and aged fabrics combine to yield neckties with deep, rich colors and distinct designs. Eyeglasses ($400–$600) by Drift Eyewear Chris Mantz, the designer and founder of Chicago-based Drift Eyewear, said he likes “letting the materials do the talking.” If that’s the case, it’s probably hard to get them to shut up—the “uncommon and overlooked materials” that Drift champions are rife with history and steeped in Americana. Drift’s designers have spent months scouring old naval yards to find reclaimed teak boat decking, which they used in a limited supply run of eyeglasses. They’ve even fashioned glasses from maple that was once a skateboard. Black, Yellow, and Magenta Plaid Shirt ($178) by Glass House Shirt Makers Founder Daniel Bernardo stumbled upon the fabric for this plaid shirt by accident, but he was immediately drawn in by its vibrant color pattern and exceptional softness. “It’s a slim fit, more of a European style,” he said. Originally from New York, Bernardo now operates out of Chicago and said one of his goals is to bring simple and clean fitted shirts to the Midwest, which he said tends to hew toward a look that’s “a little more rugged, with some of that heritage feel to it.” Photo: © Adam B. Hirsch