The latest from Michigan Avenue's Editor-in-Chief, J.P. Anderson.
Prepedicure posing with Belinda Chang and Saks Fifth Avenue’s Stephanie Sallah at Chang’s fabulous Port Toes and Chanel event at Ezza Spa.
After the sun-soaked days and action-packed nights of summer, I love the change of scene that autumn brings to Chicago. Crisp weather and crunching leaves, fall fashions and football games—it’s a cool, completely different vibe, and that bracing seasonality is one of the reasons why this city never fails to charm. Something else that makes this month particularly special? Our Men’s issue, which has been a beloved October tradition for years and whose cover has been graced by everyone from Mandy Patinkin and Jim Gaffigan to Chicago Bears great Matt Forte and, just last year, the incomparable Nick Offerman and Megan Mullally.
This year’s issue features page after page of Windy City gents who do the extraordinary every day: jack-of-all-trades Ben Gott, who founded Boxed Water 10 years ago and is now making waves across the fields of fashion and furniture design; SVRN owner David Kim, whose Fulton Market District shop is redefining how we look at streetwear; photographer Lee Bey, whose new book, Southern Exposure, shines a light on oft-neglected structural gems on the South Side; and powerhouse architect John Ronan, whose star continues to rise ever higher with recent successes like IIT’s stunning Innovation Center. Reading the stories of these dynamic men makes me even more excited about the city’s future, and I hope you’ll feel the same.
There’s plenty more where that came from this month. It is autumn in Chicago, after all, and that means a calendar packed with cultural events, from a hotly anticipated Warhol retrospective at the Art Institute to the Joffrey Ballet’s Jane Eyre, Ideas Week and the Chicago Humanities Festival—heck, even Madonna is in town, for not one but six nights. It just goes to show that autumn is when this city really starts to sizzle.
Photography by: PHOTO BY VICTORIA KENT
