In the 1950s, a well-dressed woman wouldn’t think about dining out or going to a job interview without an appropriate hat.
But today, in the virtually hatless 1990s, it takes a little courage for women to venture out in a toque, pill box or wide-brimmed number. A group of local professionals have solved that problem by creating their own support group and dubbing it Charming Hats in Chicago–CHIC.
CHIC members dine once a month at various downtown or River North restaurants, explains co-founder Janice Koerber, a manager in the international division of Trans Union, the Chicago-based credit reporting agency. Besides wearing hats, there’s no agenda–and no dues.
“It’s sort of a validation, a celebration. Strangers come up to us all the time and tell us how glamorous we look,” said Koerber, who estimates her hat collection at around 150.
For those who lack a hat-wearing network, an October fundraiser at the Brasserie Jo restaurant may provide a fashion outlet.
The Millinery Arts Alliance, a group of Chicago area milliners, is hosting its third La Fete des Catherinettes, a celebration of hat-wearing, on Oct. 23 from 5:30 to 8 p.m. The event will feature an award for the most creative hats and a silent auction of hats. Proceeds benefit the Y-Me National Breast Cancer Organization.
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The celebration of hat-wearing continues the following weekend with a Hat Walk around boutiques in Chicago’s Sheffield neighborhood.
For information, call the Hat Line, 312-409-6311.
Malled out: Going to the mall just isn’t fun anymore. That’s what millions of consumers are telling retailers by taking their dollars elsewhere.
But mall owners aren’t throwing in the towel. A group of them have joined forces with PNC National Bank and Visa to lure shoppers back. Their solution: a credit card that earns cash rebates for shoppers who spend their bucks at malls.
By using the new card, shoppers earn Mall V.I.P. dollars equal to 2 percent of mall purchases and 1 percent of other purchases, up to $500 annually. Award certificates are redeemable at participating mall merchants and restaurants accepting Visa.
The program has got some heavy hitters behind it, such as General Growth Properties, The Rouse Co., Simon DeBartolo Group and Urban Retail Properties. By year-end, the card’s backers predict 70 percent of mall space will be participating in the program.
But will a mall-related credit card be a hit with time-pressed consumers? A similar concept–a credit card tied to stores in a particular mall–quickly bombed out back in the 1980s, said James Daly, editor of Credit Card Management, an industry magazine. “People had more identity with the individual store than the mall,” he said.
But the new mall card is more versatile, he admits, because it’s a Visa card that can be used anywhere. Daly puts the odds for success at 50-50.
Only the Visa receipts will tell.
Still bullish: Sears, Roebuck and Co. Chairman Arthur Martinez hasn’t been talking to the news media much since April, when the retailer admitted it had been illegally collecting money from bankrupt debtors for years.
But Martinez is still talking to Wall Street, and he continues to sound bullish about Sears’ 1997 profits. At a Sept. 9 conference in New York sponsored by Robertson, Stephens & Co., Martinez predicted Sears sales would rise more than 10 percent to $42 billion.
And he stuck by his earlier prediction that earnings would increase by 15 percent despite the $475 million pretax charge Sears took in the second quarter. Investors are hard to impress: Sears stock fell 31 cents, to $56.50 a share, that day.
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