The clothes packed onto racks in the back room of Elizabeth Carlisle’s Wicker Park clothing store Pentimento remind me of playing dress up out of my grandmother’s costume trunk: there are velvet and brocade Edwardian vests and ruffled blouses, cotton shirts silk-screened with wagon trains and cacti, vintage-inspired wool jackets out of His Girl Friday.
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But the clothes in my grandmother’s trunk were always falling apart, and the fabrics were usually bargain-basement. The pieces on Carlisle’s racks–the labor of 33 local designers–are anything but. They’re part of the lineup for Coyote Couture, a fashion show taking place tomorrow night as part of the Around the Coyote art fest. The clothes’ flamboyant designs are countered by their fine details: embroidered buttons, pleats lined with contrasting material, the subtle variations of hand-dyed fabric.
