Dior's Blockbuster

Dior is one of the few shows where the models walk the way people imagine fashion models walk—all attitude, like Derek Zoolander. I watched with surprise as the big name girls, usually so cool on the catwalk, strutted and pranced. Each one put her own bit of flair into her final pose for the photogs—a coquettish popped shoulder here, an arm sliding from hip to thigh there...

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Shoes in Lincoln Square

A Shoe In

The Dressing Room Shoes (4657 N. Lincoln Ave.; 773-878-7400, thedressingroomchicago.com), the recently opened specialty outpost from the same owners of three-year-old Lincoln Square shop The Dressing Room, is located just down the street from its sister store and carries both affordable and swanky kicks. On the casual side, find mom-friendly Crocs and adorable lace-up rain boots from Dav ($80.50), as well as...

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Who's Ready for Paris Fashion Week?

If you're like me and have been following fashion weeks in London and Milan on the Web, well, it's been an interesting juxtaposition, hasn't it? Extravagant fashion shows happening at the same time as political drama and a tanking economy.

As headlines told of collapse on Wall Street, the models in Milan were toppling, too—because the shoes were so high and monstrously large. Anyway, now we're in Paris, and things seem to be...

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Queen Anne Reigns in Lakewood-Balmoral

List Price: $1,187,000
Sale Price: $1,200,000
The Property: Those prices above are not transposed. This house really did accomplish something we don’t see much of anymore, selling for more than the asking price. Not only that, but the sellers’ real-estate agent, Kathy Murphy, says she had...

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The Temperament Debate

Can a contest for the world's most important public office get any more uncertain than this? For all of his seriousness and sobriety, Barack Obama consistently seems to find himself playing the straight man in these unhinged political acts.

First, Sarah Palin and her hockey mom-with-lipstick sent the political contest hurtling into bizarro world, at least for a while. Then, the country's credit and mortgage crisis evolved into a full-blown threat to the nation's financial system, turning the economy into the overriding issue in the campaign. That led John McCain to cite the turmoil, declare that he was...

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Hedda the Class

Gabler, Interrupted
Into the Woods meets Groundhog Day in The Further Adventures of Hedda Gabler, a campy twist on the story of Henrik Ibsen’s doomed heroine from playwright Jeff Whitty (Avenue Q). When Hedda decides to take things into her own...

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On The Market—France Invades Roscoe Village

List Price: $1.395 million
The Property: On a street in Roscoe Village where most houses are the characteristic Chicago types—frame or brick, farmhouse or Victorian—a family of suburban builders has imported something different: the rusticated feel of a...

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Ground Keeper

River North Ranch

Republic Pan-Asian Restaurant & Lounge, which closed on September 20th, will reopen under the same ownership on October 1st as Farmerie 58 (58 E. Ontario St.; 312-440-1818), a 150-seat “farm-centric” contemporary American restaurant. “It wasn’t doing poorly,” says Brian Newman, the general manager. “We just felt there were better concepts to really utilize this space.” Such as one that employs a former farmer who is dedicated to sustainable, organic products, and dishes such as...

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Housing Bulletin—Where the Sales Are

In its October 2008 issue, Chicago presents its annual residential real-estate chart, which, among other things, reveals how many homes were sold this past year in nearly 300 city neighborhoods and suburbs. There wasn’t space to show how those sale numbers compared to last year, but in the ongoing housing meltdown, the huge decline in...

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The Chicago Connection

It's surprising that it took this long, but Chicago's long-standing tradition of public corruption has finally emerged in John McCain's campaign against Barack Obama.

McCain on Monday unveiled a 30-second TV spot that attempts to link Obama with various players in the city's enduring history of political sleaziness. The ad begins with a narrator, in a grave voice, announcing that Obama "was born of the corrupt Chicago political machine." It quickly flashes to a clip of Obama defending his personal toughness by saying that he comes from Chicago...

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Adidas Arrives at Water Tower

Need a Kick?

Sometimes adidas (845 N. Michigan Ave., 4th fl.; 312-867-1640) actually makes shoes for athletes. Whereas the adidas Originals store on Rush Street stocks the brand’s fashion and retro heritage shoes, the new Water Tower store is the first athletic-shoe shop for the brand in the Midwest, carrying sports gear and shoes for tennis, running, basketball, soccer, and golf. The real draw is...

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Sale of the Week—Congenially Contemporary in Lincoln Park

List Price: $1,999,975
Sale Price: $1,400,000
The Property: This twenty-year-old house in west Lincoln Park fits congenially with its historic neighbors, thanks to its red brick exterior, arched windows, and slim cornice. Inside, it’s much more contemporary, with crisp expanses of...

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Our Kind of Town

Even if you’ve seen it butchered by a high-school cast—especially if you’ve seen it butchered by a high-school cast—don’t miss The Hypocrites’ take on the Thornton Wilder classic Our Town. The troupe remounts its too-short, sold-out staging, an imaginatively revisionist twist on what must be...

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On The Market—Open Season in the South Loop

List Price: $2.49 million
The Property: On the outside it’s a crisp and reserved brick and limestone structure from the 1920s. But inside, this former three-flat, now a 4,000-square-foot single-family home, is totally 21st century. That modern aesthetic begins in the foyer with the lighted acrylic...

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Sugar Power

Truth Be Toad

Pollack ate her first sugar toad. That’s the amuse Jimmy Sneed sends out to every diner at his just-opened SugarToad (2139 CityGate Ln., Naperville; 630-778-8623). She also tried the sweetbread with a poached egg on arugula (hearty and enjoyable) and turnip soup with smoked bacon (more, please). So what’s up with sugar toads? They’re a nice gesture but...

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A Midwest Color Line?

In fall 2006, before Barack Obama and his coterie of astute political strategists decided to launch his campaign for president, they burrowed into the polling details of the U.S. Senate race in Tennessee that year.

Why? That was the most recent contest in which race might have played a significant factor in the outcome of a statewide election. Democrat Harold Ford, an African-American Congressman, narrowly lost the Senate race to Bob Corker, a white Republican...

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