It's Curious City, where we take your questions about Chicago and the region,

and investigate, report, explore, from WBEZ.

I'm Erin Allen.

We're at Mount Sinai resale shop in the Lakeview neighborhood where our question asker, Emily Porter, does a lot of shopping.

I was going through the racks and I saw this beautiful pattern and this woven sort of sweater.

When she looked at the label, she saw the words Maria Rodriguez Chicago.

I don't know any designers specifically from Chicago.

Like you know that Chanel is from Paris and you know that Prada is from Italy.

But what about Maria Rodriguez from Chicago?

Emily wants to know her story.

So we went looking for Maria Rodriguez.

And in the process, we discovered this golden age of Chicago fashion designers.

And I'm not just talking about the more familiar names like Maria Pinto or Virgil Ablo.

There was a peak time when dozens of independent Chicago designers and brands really shined back in the 1970s and 80s. Oh man, there was a lot of money passing through here.

This is Jessica Peshore with the Chicago History Museum.

She's basically the keeper and curator of all things Chicago fashion there.

She says the city wanted to make fashion a big industry.

The government here in Chicago was definitely putting money into it.

And there was the support from, you know, building this huge apparel center. The apparel center.

It was this large building downtown attached to the merchandise mart. It was built in

1976 and became the heart of the apparel industry in Chicago devoted to showcasing and connecting the

fashion industry. At the helm was a woman named Dorothy Fuller. She was Chicago's grand

...