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  N’DIGO STUDIO THEME N'DIGO Studio, N'DIGO Studio, we are in the living room, join me in the living room. N'DIGO Studio, yeah, HERMENE HARTMAN N'DIGO Studio. Hi, I'm Hermene Hartman. Welcome to N'DIGO Studio. Today, we're going to talk about fashion and style and evolution. My guest, well, she's really my very good friend. She's one of Chicago's premier fashion designers. Her name, Barbara Bates. For four decades, Barbara has dressed... The who's who of Chicago. People like Michael Jordan, Oprah Winfrey, Steve Harvey. But you know fashion is really more than clothes. Fashion has an attitude, it has presence, and it really tells the world who you are. before you say a word because fashion communicates. Something's powerful about a woman who evolves. Her style changes, life changes, bodies change, fashion change, trends change, and Barbara's going to talk about it and tell us what a best-dressed woman looks like. Barbara, welcome and thank you for being with us and celebrating 40 years. BARBARA BATES It's my pleasure. HERMENE HARTMAN I can't believe 40 years. You can't either, right? No, BARBARA BATES I can't. HERMENE HARTMAN So let's talk about how you started. You were a secretary at First National Bank and you were making your clothes and people began to ask you, could you make this for me? Tell me about that. BARBARA BATES Yeah. Back in the 80s, I worked at First National Bank, now Chase. And I always had like a certain kind of way that I like to dress. The girls back then were wearing the suits with the little bow ties. And I would come in with leather, with decadent silk, brocaded fabrics, because I was buying fabrics and taking them to a friend and have them make things for me. And then the girls working in the bank would, you know, come by the desk and tell me they liked the way I dressed. And so my entrepreneurial spirit just kind of like jumped in. And I said, I could make one for you. And that's pretty much how I really started. I was doing things for my girlfriends, you know, who I knew. And, you know, they could pay you something now and the balance when Jesus comes back. So it wasn't like I was really making a big sale. But selling to people who I didn't know, that was like a testament to what I was doing was something worth seeing. HERMENE HARTMAN And so you opened up shop in the South Loop. BARBARA BATES I did. HERMENE HARTMAN And something wonderful happened. There was a basketball player who was extra tall and you start making clothes for him. Tell me about your start with Michael Jordan. BARBARA BATES So actually, I mean, I did not follow sports or basketball. And the first basketball player that I met was in a shopping mall in a store called North Beach Leather. And I just approached him and I said, I'm a fashion designer. I work with leather. I could give you some unusual stuff that they don't have in this store. His name was Sam Perkins. And Sam was the first ball player that I did something for. And Sam went to school with Michael Jordan. And when Sam came to Chicago, he invited me to a party and Michael Jordan was there. I met Michael, gave him my business card, and he said he would reach out to me. And probably about a couple of weeks later, I got the phone call that Michael Jordan was interested in having some things made. And he didn't want to come to the shop. He wanted to come to my home to just talk about it first. And he came to my home and he brought Charles Oakley with him. And at the time, they were both pretty much rookies. And Charles is like, well, I can't afford anything right now, but I'm getting ready to sign a contract. And I promise when I do, I'm going to come back. And Charles is somebody who holds true to his word. And so I started with Michael and the rest was everybody wants to be like Mike. HERMENE HARTMAN So was this Michael before he was the Michael Jordan that we know now? Or was this Michael, young Michael starting out? BARBARA BATES I think it was like in the starting out phase was over. He was already a superstar. He was already, you know, jumping and sticking his tongue out. And... Girls waiting in line to get next to him. So he was already like superstar. HERMENE HARTMAN Is it different designing for men than it is for women? BARBARA BATES Not necessarily. For men back then when I was designing, it was exciting because men then were doing like suits all the time, but they started like venturing off like Michael did, doing like leather sweatshirts, leather pants, python jackets, crocodile jackets. They were a little bit more whimsical with their style. Now, today we know that men are like totally over the top because in 40 years, the style has changed so that men are actually going back to whimsical style. And we know that everything that was old is actually new again. HERMENE HARTMAN Sometimes when I speak publicly, I talk about how the Bulls, starting with Michael, and when they came out of the dressing room, they were always suited up. And those were Barbara Bates' suits, very honestly. BARBARA BATES So the Bulls, I had probably, I don't know if I had half of the players that I was dressing, but I had quite a few of them. You had half of them. Yeah. HERMENE HARTMAN You had half of them. BARBARA BATES And at that time, they were just, everybody wanted to do the next person. Of course, Michael was the first one, so he always got preferential care. And then the other players started coming. Now, when the other players started coming, that did, like, you know, raise a little bit of dissension because people wanted me to be their personal designer. But I'm a small company operating on a shoestring budget, and to ask me just to make one, that's just, like, so unfair. So when other players from his team would come and they wanted something similar to his, I wouldn't do the same thing, but I would do something similar. HERMENE HARTMAN You like to work with leather. How did how did leather come into your because that's a signature for you is leather. How did leather come into being such a presence for you? BARBARA BATES I actually was always a shopper. I love to I love to dress and buy fancy things. But my my budget was not that. And there were a pair of pants by a designer at that time called Escada that we know now. But early on. That was not a designer's name that was known, but Escada had a pair of fabulous leather pants that I wanted to buy, but the price tag was unbelievable. So I wanted to know what makes leather cost so much. So I started researching and unfortunately I couldn't Google it. I had to research it with the yellow pages going through and looking for like leather, where could you get it? And of course it was in New York. So I had to make a trip to New York. I found a leather distributor who I still work with now 40 years later and finding that distributor in New York is what landed me in leather. And I love working with leather because you There wasn't anybody else that was doing miraculous things with leather that had that type of leather connection that I had. This person was going and they were bringing back like perforated leather, painted leather, like leather that you had never seen before. And they were like my, you know, they were like my gift to what I could show somebody what I could work with and do with leather. So leather has always been like extremely special for me. HERMENE HARTMAN And you like fabrics. BARBARA BATES I love fabrics. HERMENE HARTMAN That's part of your design is the fabric is unique. BARBARA BATES So fabrics came in later on. Fabrics came after that first summer when I was still working with leather that I almost starved because nobody was buying leather in the summertime. So I said, I got to like switch this up. You had to find some time. I started working with fabrics, but I didn't just want regular fabrics. I wasn't working with jogging suit. I wasn't really working with cotton. So I went straight for the gusto, for brocades, you know, like for silken wools, like fabrics that had a lot of texture to them. They were fabrics that pretty much um had like lots of color uh they were crisp they were exotic fabrics and that stayed in tune with what i was doing the leather was exotic so the fabric had to meet the same need and then i started merging them together okay 500 deluxe garden gnomes wow i only meant to order five there's not enough money in my account for these i'm gonna get charged two things i just can't deal with overdraft charges and garden gnomes [Commercial break — advertising content omitted] HERMENE HARTMAN One of the things you talk about often is that as a fashion designer, you don't sew. Tell me how you don't sew, but you design passions. How does that work? BARBARA BATES So I actually have never learned how to sew. I made something when I was in high school once, and I wore it to a school dance. By the end of the dance, the whole thing was like falling apart. And so I knew then I'd have the patience for sitting in a sewing machine, and so I never really learned how to sew. My gift was the fabric and what the fabric could do. It was just like innately, I knew that if I buy this particular fabric and the way that it falls, It'll make a great... whatever it's going to make. And so that was, yeah, that, that was what I had that was able to take me someplace with the fashion. And so, and I didn't learn pattern making. So I started doing simple things. That's why I needed decadent fabric because I didn't know draping. So I needed to make things like a pencil skirt or sheath dress, something very simple that didn't require a lot of draping, a lot of like, how do I get this pattern to work? How do I set the sleeve in? Let's go with something simple, but let's make the fabric. Wow. And that's still going to sell for me. HERMENE HARTMAN So you're self-taught. BARBARA BATES I'm self-taught, yes. HERMENE HARTMAN You're really self-taught. So tell me, I know one of the things you've done, I call it a Dolly Parton moment, and that is the prom dresses. So you did couture dresses for young ladies going to the prom at no charge. Tell me how that came about. BARBARA BATES So I was a teen mom, and at the time that I got pregnant in high school, you couldn't stay in your high school. You had to go to an alternative school. And I was fortunate enough to go to the one alternative school that they had in the city of Chicago. At that time it was called Family Living Centers, now called Simpson. And I went to that school, and going to that school, all the girls there, of course, were pregnant teens, and they gave you the opportunity to go back to your regular high school without missing a grade. And I was able to go back to my high school, and when I went back, I had extra credits, which would allow me to graduate early if I loaded up and took two extra night classes, which I did. And so that made me able to, even though I got pregnant in high school, I was able to graduate early from high school. And after I graduated and started my company, a young lady reached out to me and said, you know, hello. And I don't remember her name. And she said, are you the same Barbara Bates had a baby in high school? And I was like, yeah, what's it to you? Because that was a situation, something that I really didn't like talk a lot about because people always made you feel bad about it. And I think at that time, my son may have been about 14 years old. She said, well, hold on. She says, I went to school with you. You won't remember me, but I remember you. You were always into fashion. And I recently read an article about you and I've been following ever since following you ever since then. And I wanted to know if you would come to the West Side and speak to a group of women that a group of girls that I work with. They're all teens. And know that she wanted me to come back to. She wasn't even teaching. She was teaching at a hospital. She was doing like a program for girls that were teen moms. and it was at Bethany Hospital. And she said... the girls are all, you know, pregnant, but I wonder, would you come and tell your story? And so for me at that time, it didn't have a meaning. I like, why would I want to, you know, put myself in that situation? And it was just something that I never talked about. And so I told her, yes, I would come. But when I got off the phone, I had no intentions on going. Although the day I was supposed to go, she called to just make sure I was on my way. And so I had to like hold true to that. And I didn't have anything. written down to say because I still didn't understand what it was she wanted from me. And so driving over there, it just reminded me of the same area that I grew up in. And then walking in the room and seeing the young girls just brought up feelings and emotions that were buried deep, but were always a weight on my shoulder. And what I started to do, since I didn't have anything specially glib and wonderful written out, was just to tell my story, just till The truth of my story, because I didn't have to read it off of a paper, I could relive it in my mind. And I relived that story. And it was a really touching moment because everybody in the room broke down crying. And it still brings up emotions because I watched them and they were so proud of me when I said I graduated from high school early. You know, with honors, they stood up and they clapped and they were like so proud of what I had done. And I had never thought about those things. And I wanted to do something for them because that weight that I felt on my shoulder, they thought I was coming there to help them. But they actually helped me that day. And so that's how I started giving away the prom dresses. I said there was something I wanted to do. Financially, I couldn't do anything. So I said, if you go back to school and you graduate, then I'll make your prom dress. Um, And that year, actually that next day, I got a call from the Board of Education. They said, we heard that you graduated from CPS schools and that you have a story to tell. Would you be willing to tell it at some other schools? And I did. And that's how I became like the lady who does the prom dresses. HERMENE HARTMAN You did a lot of dresses and you didn't shortchange them. They had beautiful fabric. BARBARA BATES And I did suits for the young man. And it started out being teens that were pregnant. And then it just evolved into teens. HERMENE HARTMAN Teens that need it. This is a Barbara Bates. This is the first time. This dress is about five years old. And I've never worn it out before. BARBARA BATES It looks amazing on you. HERMENE HARTMAN I had to lose a little weight. But your styles are classic. Is that intentional? BARBARA BATES Trend is something that I never got into. All while I designed, I had people asking me, could I get a trend report or do I follow the trends? I didn't see how something that somebody was doing over in Paris or in Italy could come over here right into, you know, the west side of Chicago and dictate what it is that people are going to wear. So I just... Use my own instincts and I use what I like, but I always wanted to do something that fit the woman properly. So it didn't have to be a skinny person or a tall person or a model S person. It just had to be something that was well put together, that was made well and that fit them properly. And if you're going to pay this, you know, a nice amount of money for something, you want to be able to wear it again. So I never went for whimsical or way out because I wanted to sell my clothing. I didn't want to be entertainment that did a fashion show. I wanted to show you clothing and I wanted you to come to the back and say, hey, I want to purchase that. So it was always something that was wearable. HERMENE HARTMAN You had an experience on a television show, kind of reality fashion. Yeah, Fashion Star. Called Fashion Star on NBC. Tell me about that experience. You were featured with 14 different designers. Tell me about that experience and what it meant for you. BARBARA BATES 14 different younger designers. That's when I finally realized that I had gotten old. to like, you know. Your body gets old, but your mind doesn't like go with you. And being in that room with all those young designers, something like settled in, like you're there now. You're the mature lady. And I really, I really didn't know that until I was in the room with these people. And what they wanted was actually something that I had already had. They wanted to have a business and they wanted to have a fashion business that they could sell to. So right away when I saw that I didn't really like fit in all the way, my whole thing was. I'm ready to leave this show because I got to go back to my business because we were sequestered. We couldn't call. We couldn't use our cell phones and we could not. HERMENE HARTMAN You were locked up. BARBARA BATES We couldn't like, yeah, we couldn't like, you know, talk to other people on the phone unless we had the producers present because the show was pre-taped and then it would air like several months later. The show did teach me a lot. It taught me actually really because I did so much custom. It really taught me about selling mass, like mass producing and selling to the larger department stores. which was something that I thought that I always wanted to do, but I never really wanted to lose the control. And I find myself being just a little bit of a control junkie, wanting to be right there, make sure it's going to come out right, make sure that it's what the person is looking for. So I never really went down that road of having things mass produced. [Commercial break — advertising content omitted] HERMENE HARTMAN What's the difference between style and fashion? What's style? What's fashion? BARBARA BATES So style is something that I want to say is like innate. Somebody that just like gets up even if they put on a sweatshirt or they put on, you know, an evening dress. They're always well put together. That's what style is. Fashion is something that's being dictated by someone else and you're just like mannequin purchasing or you're mannequin buying for that particular event or, you know, for that particular affair, but it's not something that you're obsessed with that you always have to have. A person with style, they follow, you know, like who the designers are. what's hot for right now so that they can take it and incorporate it with whatever it is that's already sitting in their closet. And I'd like to think about when people started recognizing what Barbara Bates was, they started recognizing my style first. My style is what got me noticed. And then I was able to parlay that into, I can take this and I can reproduce it and turn it into a business. HERMENE HARTMAN So give me some fashion tips. Give me three fashion tips. What should everybody know about fashion? BARBARA BATES One thing is proper underwear. You hate to have like, you know, like a panty line showing through something that's fitted. So that's like the worst thing in the world is the bunched up underwear on a beautiful dress. Leggings. Leggings are that. They are only to show legs. They are not a pair of pants that you wear out with a crop top or a jacket and you hold behind. And your thighs and your legs are showing through this thin fabric. A legging is a legging. It doesn't make a difference what size you are. Go to the gym. Unless that legging is like super thick, then it should not be like worn by itself. And so they took leggings and they just turned it into, you know, a pair of pants, which I totally hate to see that. HERMENE HARTMAN So proper underwear, no leggings, ladies. What's the third one? BARBARA BATES Let's see. The third one, I think just, you know, wearing things that fit you properly. you know, and that are appropriate for you, that are age appropriate and that fit. And really, a woman of any age can wear anything. A woman of any size can wear anything if it's properly done. HERMENE HARTMAN Who's your favorite fashion designer? BARBARA BATES Barbara Bates. HERMENE HARTMAN Other than Barbara Bates, who's your favorite fashion designer? You just told me you're going to Fashion Week and ain't got nothing to wear. BARBARA BATES I think there's a few. I mean, I really like Sacai. They do like whimsical things or things that I don't do. Lots of layers, lots of different pieces. And I like looking at that. And they take like, you know, three different jackets and incorporate it into one. So I like their things and I buy their things, you know, like they're really great. And there's another like local designer in the city that actually. interned under me and her name is Terry Stevens and her style is similar than mine but it's much more youthful and it's um a modern take on you know the mature Barbara Bates style and I love Terry's things as well your favorite color black ask HERMENE HARTMAN me why I wore black BARBARA BATES I had to struggle to find color to wear because HERMENE HARTMAN I yeah I just I love can I tell you something you taught me I don't know if you realize you taught me this, but I like purple and plums and magentas. Those are the colors that I like because I spark in them, my skin looks better in them. And you told me one time, well, then that's what you should wear. And so black. Designers have a signature, Valentino, it's red. What's the Barbara Bates signature? BARBARA BATES I like to think that maybe it's The fabric take on it is, is it, I mean, even if it's going to be black, it's going to have something ornate on it that it doesn't just make it the simple little black dress. Yeah. It's got to have like some aspect of it that, um, makes it, um, just makes it, makes it pop or that makes it me. So it's the fabric pretty much. HERMENE HARTMAN You are a survivor, a cancer survivor. BARBARA BATES Yes, I am. HERMENE HARTMAN And since you've had cancer, You said it's not just about pretty clothes. It's about helping women. Tell me about your work at Mount Sinai. BARBARA BATES Sinai Hospital is the hospital that I aligned myself with. And a lot of times when we have hospitals that are in the neighborhoods that we live in, we know that they're smaller hospitals. We know that, or we think that they don't do the same thing as the big hospitals, you know, that have all the wonderful equipment. And I was somebody who thought that. And after my diagnosis with breast cancer, I decided to have a fashion show because something was telling me you have a voice in the community and you should use your gift of fashion and let women know how afraid they should be of breast cancer because it's so prevalent. And I never thought that I was at risk for breast cancer because I didn't have the right information. So I thought it's important that I give them this information. The way that I reel them in is through a fashion show. And so. Someone introduced me to Sinai, which is the hospital that I live walking distance from, and I was able to learn that they could have left the neighborhood a long time ago, but they stayed and they serve a Latino and African-American community now, and that they are one of the biggest trauma centers next to County Hospital, and that the work that they're doing is like really important. And so I decided that I would want to fundraise for them and fundraise. The first fundraiser that I did was when I gave the fashion show after my treatment, and I did a fashion show with 50 models, and all the models were breast cancer survivors, and we raised $50,000, which to me was like a million dollars. And I gifted it to Northwestern with the understanding that they had to give it to a small hospital and that it be Mount Sinai. And thus, I made a marriage between those two hospitals where they did give them the $50,000 and they gifted them some very... important expensive equipment that they needed there. And then the president from Sinai actually called me, thanked me and said, if you could raise a half a million dollars in five years, then we would name an imaging center after you. And I was like, no, thanks. I got bills on my desk. A half a million dollars sounds like, you know, a lifetime of I couldn't like, I'm not interested in that, but I'll definitely do another fundraiser for you. But after like, I want to say it was probably like a couple of months of them calling me. Then there was an anonymous donor that said, if Barbara Bates will say yes to this, I'll put up the first $250,000. And I still don't know who that person was, but they did. They put up the first $250,000, and then we raised another $450,000 over three years. And in October of 22 or 24, I'm not really sure right now, they named the Barbara Bates Breast Imaging Center. And with the money we raised, they bought their very first 3D breast imaging machine. HERMENE HARTMAN And that's at Mount Sinai Hospital. BARBARA BATES That's at Mount Sinai Hospital, yeah. HERMENE HARTMAN So 40 years, what are you doing to celebrate your 40th anniversary? BARBARA BATES I'm going to have a fashion show and a presentation of some older pieces, and it's going to be held at the Obama Presidential Center. And we'll show vintage pieces, and then I'll show a collection with new emerging designers from Columbia College, a few of those designers, and then I'll show Barbara Bates' 40 pieces of today. HERMENE HARTMAN Congratulations. And I'm so glad that we're friends. And I'm so glad 40 years because we started around the same time. Absolutely. And absolutely. It's been a joy. It's been a treat. It's wonderful to walk in and say, Barbara, I need a gala dress. And you say, when do you need it? I said, two days. You got two days to figure out something and run out and you just do something absolutely fabulous. BARBARA BATES Well, it's been about more than fashion with us, too. We've shared intimate moments. HERMENE HARTMAN Yep. Yeah. Don't start me crying. Okay. Barbara Bates, thank you so much for being with us. And congratulations on 40 years and beautiful clothes. And I thank you not only for me, but for all the women that you have designed for. And I thank Michael Jordan because he made it work for all of us. BARBARA BATES He really did. He did. HERMENE HARTMAN Thank you. You're welcome. Congratulations, Barbara Bates. My guest today, Barbara Bates on style, on fashion. and how it changes and she is one of the best dressed women she just got it like that y'all thank you N’DIGO STUDIO THEME We are in the living room, join me in the living room. N'DIGO Studio. N'DIGO Studio.