Seeking chic new look, Chicago’s longtime financial center strolls toward the catwalk
135 South LaSalle - Rendering
By Ryan Ori | October 30, 2025
An unlikely sector of the Chicago economy is looking to bring the city’s longtime financial center, LaSalle Street, back in fashion after years of high-profile defections of large office tenants.
A newly created nonprofit called the Chicago Fashion Vanguard is looking to bring celebrations of the fashion world to the key avenue in the Loop business district, which has years into a fight to overcome the effects of COVID-19 and competition from new towers to the west along the Chicago River and in the fast-growing Fulton Market former meatpacking district.
One aspect of the plan, sure to turn heads on the once-staid street where suits and ties were the norm for decades, is a plan to next year have models waltz down a raised catwalk within the so-called canyon of LaSalle towers.
The canyon is formed by a line of office towers with classic features such as large pillars. The hulking Chicago Board of Trade Building encloses the canyon at the southern end.
The Chicago Fashion Vanguard is led by Chicago fashion professionals Ian Gerard and Maggie Gillette, principals at fashion events producer The Curio; Christine Griffith, principal at retail incubator Monte Vista; and Dave Jeff, founder of sneaker boutique store PHLI. The group is partnering with event production firm ESP Presents, led by Matt Woodburn and Sarah Neukom.
The fashion initiative aims to place Chicago on the national and international fashion map while bringing vitality to a street in need of some pizzazz, according to a statement.
“With the city investing nearly a billion dollars into its LaSalle Reimagined development program, this is the perfect moment to unite Chicago’s leading design talent with its extraordinary architectural heritage — creating fashion and cultural programming that begins to tell the next chapter of this iconic part of the city,” Gerard said in the statement.
It is the latest in a string of ideas in recent years introduced by city leaders and groups such as Chicago Fashion Vanguard to bring new uses and ideas to LaSalle.
The new group, which wants to use high fashion to juxtapose and highlight the street’s historic architecture, was set to hold a launch celebration Thursday night in the Field Building, a historic skyscraper at 135 S. LaSalle St.
That is one of several older, architecturally significant office towers on and around LaSalle destined for partial or full conversions from corporate space to affordable apartments as the area once best known for banks, traders and other financial services firms transitions to a mixed-use district.
Thursday’s event is hosted by the three real estate companies — New York-based AmTrust and Chicago-based firms Riverside Investment & Development and DL3 Realty — that plan to convert part of the tower into 386 apartments.
The project will be backed by $98 million in tax-increment funding as part of a broader city initiative to provide incentives for developers converting office space on and LaSalle into apartments, as long as at least 30% of the units have affordable, below-market rents.
The Chairman’s Room on the 43rd floor of the building at 135 S. LaSalle will serve as the backdrop for the announcement by the fashion industry collective that it plans to bring programming to LaSalle.
A model wearing designs from Chicago’s Stephane St. Jaymes took part in a recent photo shoot in the area to help highlight the initiative. St. Jaymes is among the designers set to be showcased at the event Thursday.
Celebrations of style
For next year, planned programming includes a two-day fashion program planned for March at 135 S. LaSalle called “Fashion at the Field” and another two-day event for the fall called “Chicago Style Weekend 2026: From Corridor to Catwalk, LaSalle Reimagined.”
The combined four-day celebration, highlighted by the runway show framed by the Chicago Board of Trade Building, is scheduled to include pop-up marketplaces, runway and fashion presentations, storefront takeovers and other events, according to the statement.
The goal is to make fashion programming an annual event.
“We believe that engaging Chicago’s style-conscious consumers is essential to fueling the successful revitalization of the Loop,” Rian Walker of DL3 Realty said in the statement.
Other post-pandemic efforts by the city to enliven areas of downtown have included closing off LaSalle once a week during lunchtime and making a section of State Street pedestrian-only on Sundays.
LaSalle Street faces a yearslong recovery from the losses of major tenants, including Bank of America and BMO Financial moving along the river to anchor new trophy towers.
One way to offset soft office demand and address a shortage of affordable housing is the ongoing initiative that began under the previous mayor, Lori Lightfoot, and continued by Brandon Johnson when he took office in 2023.
The first project, a conversion of some floors of the building at 79 W. Monroe St. into 117 apartments, is underway.
Other hopeful signs for the Loop include JPMorgan Chase’s decision to remodel and remain in its 60-story namesake tower and Google’s plans to buy and occupy the Helmut Jahn-designed James R. Thompson Center after a redevelopment of the building previously owned by the state of Illinois is completed.