Zaga Petrovic, co-owner of Chicago Hair Goods, will be the first to tell you that nothing in this world is permanent. Not the beauty-supply business. Not permanents, she admits with a sigh. And not the art of wig making.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Chicago Hair Goods, a sixth-floor storefront at 428 S. Wabash, sells products that are difficult, if not impossible, to find anywhere else in Chicago: Becky Lynn Self-Adhesive Silk Overlay, Youthair Creme, Phos-Four Super Gel Cold Perm, Afro Sheen Blowout Kit, Vapon Wig Cleaner, Five-Second Nail Filler, and Nestle Touch of Glitter, along with various hair-coloring systems, blends, tints, toners, sprays, and assorted goop. A sign on the street still reads Chicago Hair Goods Co.: Human Hair for Weaving.
A Gothic-script sign over the entrance reads, “Through these doors pass the finest people in the world–Our customers.” There are fewer customers these days, but Petrovic likes it that way. “Stuff like conditioner, shampoo–general things that we supplied–we eliminated,” she says. “Because you have Phar-Mor, you have that M & M–whatever is the name, I don’t know–and you go there and you buy all that stuff. We don’t need it. Certain people, they can’t find in other places, they come here and they find.”
Petrovic says Goldstein belonged to many charitable organizations, was a well-respected member of the community, and is probably the only person ever to have been both included in Who’s Who in American Beauty and awarded the Israel Peace Medal. He had many famous friends, and their pictures still line the walls of the store: both mayors Daley, Jane Byrne, Harold Washington, presidents Johnson, Nixon, Carter, and Reagan, Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Bob Hope, George Burns, Jimmy Durante, Danny Thomas, Johnny Carson, Mitzi Gaynor, Beverly Sills, Carol Burnett, and Topol. There are also photos of showgirls, a dancing Oreo cookie, a poodle wearing a blond wig, and A.F. Willat, “inventor of cold permanent weaving and dean of American hair scientists.” And pictures of Goldstein with Harold Washington, at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, and deep-sea fishing in the Bahamas.
