Tiffany Leather Collection designers Richard Lambertson and John Truex.

If John Truex could move back to his beloved Chicago, he says, “I’d throw it all in a bag—I love this city.” Along with business partner Richard Lambertson, Truex has been the design director of the Tiffany Leather Collection since 2009. They were the brains behind the Chicago-based Lambertson Truex, a chic handbag label that won them the CFDA Accessories Designer of the Year award in 2000.

Under their direction, Tiffany & Co. has expanded its leather collection with sophisticated and covetable pieces: a wicker basket with Tiffany blue leather straps, a beach-ready tote, and a crocodile leather clutch in daffodil yellow. We met up with Truex for drinks at The Purple Pig (500 N. Michigan Ave., 312-464-1744) to talk about spring trends, designing for Tiffany’s, and the many reasons why Chicago continues to be a source of inspiration.

How do you design for a brand like Tiffany & Co. that has almost two centuries of history?
JOHN TRUEX: I wanted to make it Tiffany, yet we also wanted to design a collection that can stand on its own. When we started, I wanted to understand the history of Tiffany from the very beginning, so I searched the archives and looked at the details of the bags that were made in the ‘20s. Being in the leather industry, I kind of knew what women wanted, but it was also about understanding the heritage—[things like] the importance of the Tiffany color. It’s simply iconic; it doesn’t need to have a label.

What was your inspiration behind the spring collection?
JT: Richard and I took a trip to Amsterdam and I love that city—it’s dense and complex, yet simple. The women there are so chic, [with] the bikes and the baskets and the bags. So that was the feel that inspired us.

Do you have any favorite pieces in the collection?
JT: I do. There’s a bag called the Celia. It’s a very large tote with two exterior zippers. I love that bag; I think it’s really fabulous. I also love the Quinn, which is sort of boxy with a short top handle and a chain [shoulder strap]. I love it because it’s fresh—it would look fabulous with anything, from The Row to The Gap.

What inspires you about Chicago?
JT: I love Millennium Park; it goes on my storyboard from season to season. [I love The Bean]—the idea of it, [with] its reflection, size, the proximity of the water—being the core of the city. I love that sculpture and I love the design of the outdoor theater. There’s just a really great energy about this city.

In terms of the world market, how do you think Chicago tastes differ from, say, New York and other major fashion cities?
JT: I think there’s a huge fashion market in Chicago. It’s not that [Chicago fashion] is more conservative—it’s about fashion that’s classic, not disposable. I also find that women here love color. They like to see something that’s transitional from season to season. [They’ll choose a bag] in perhaps a more traditional color but with a more fashionable shape and details. It’s a bag that they can carry from June all the way to May.

Let’s fast-forward to fall. What’s next?
JT: Fall is really about keeping it luminous. It’s about colors like moss green and the orchid’s vibrant magentas. It’s about structure and a mix of materials like velour-esque velvet. It’s a really delicate and phenomenal mix of hard and soft; all of it works together.

CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: Ikram Goldman, Nena Ivon, Desirée Rogers, Linda Johnson Rice, Nick Cave and Brenda Shapiro.

IKRAM GOLDMAN
After opening her namesake boutique on Rush Street in 2001, Ikram Goldman opened her 16,500-square-foot “red box” in River North in 2011. The celebrated stylist curates a unique selection of designers, including Comme des Garçons, Nina Ricci, and Chanel.
An eye for style: “You can find Alaïa anywhere, you can find Givenchy or Céline anywhere, but you come to me because I have a way that I want it to look.”

NENA IVON
The longest-tenured employee in the history of Saks Fifth Avenue, Nena Ivon retired as fashion special events director in 2009, after 53 years with the company. Today, she is the president of the Costume Council at the Chicago History Museum and teaches fashion studies at Columbia College Chicago.
Dressing the part: “I don’t wear jeans when I teach. A lot of my colleagues will say, ‘Why do you dress up?’ I say, ‘I’m teaching fashion here, people.’”

DESIREE ROGERS
Currently the CEO of Johnson Publishing Company, Desirée Rogers made history as the first African-American to serve as White House social secretary. Rogers was previously the president of social networking at Allstate Financial and president of Peoples Gas and North Shore Gas.
Today’s style: “Women today can take any era, mix it up, and make it our own. We’re not afraid.”

LINDA JOHNSON RICE
Linda Johnson Rice is the chairman of Johnson Publishing Company, which publishes Ebony and Jet. Founded by her parents, John H. and Eunice W. Johnson, in 1942, Johnson Publishing Company also produces Fashion Fair Cosmetics and the legendary Ebony Fashion Fair.
Fashionably early: “I lay my clothes out at night—I change my purses, I pull out my shoes and accessories—so in the morning, I’m ready to go.”

NICK CAVE
Nick Cave is a professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s fashion design department. The award-winning artist works in a variety of mediums, including performance, sculpture, and video, and is renowned for his highly innovative Soundsuits.
Setting the trend: “As a visual artist, I have a responsibility not only with what I produce in my studio to create art, but also the image I want to portray.”

BRENDA SHAPIRO
A former fashion and beauty writer at Mademoiselle and editor at Chicago magazine, Brenda Shapiro is actively involved in the Earl and Brenda Shapiro Center for Research and Collaboration at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Words to live by: “In every generation, you need people who dress for the sheer, exhilarating pleasure of it. You don’t dress for anyone else.”

Cody at the 2011 premiere of Young Adult

She may be the proud owner of a best original screenplay Oscar (Juno), but Diablo Cody has a bone to pick with The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences: “There’s a clear imbalance that should be remedied,” she says of this year’s best screenplay Academy Award nominations, in which only one woman, Lucy Alibar (Beasts of the Southern Wild), is in the running. Perhaps that’s why her enthusiasm for co-chairing the third installment of the Athena Film Festival at Barnard College in New York was so palpable during our recent phone conversation. “When I heard what it was all about, which is women in leadership positions in film, I was really excited,” she says. Speaking from a position of relative power—Cody is one of the most successful female screenwriters in Hollywood (Young Adult, United States of Tara), and she recently directed her first feature—the Chicago native hopes to shed light on those women who’ve yet to break through in the film industry.

Tell us about the Athena Film Festival and your involvement.
DIABLO CODY: They approached me after their first year. I had actually never heard of the festival. When I heard what it was all about, which is women in leadership positions in film, I was really excited. For me, I just felt that the festival was absolutely necessary and really exciting.

Is there still a glass ceiling for women in filmmaking?
DC: It’s an exciting time to be a woman in the business. [But] for me, it’s also an important time to be a woman, because if you look at the recent Oscar nominees, not a single woman was nominated for best director. Of twelve writers nominated in the best screenplay category, only one is female. There’s a clear imbalance that should be remedied.

How do you think more doors could be opened for female writers who are just coming up in the industry?
DC: I always say that the women who are in positions of power—that are fortunate enough to be in positions of power in Hollywood—should advocate for other women constantly. If you’re a female studio head, you need to be fighting for the female director to be put on the project. I’m always advocating for women. I think it’s really important [that] if you’ve managed to get your foot in the door, you try to bring in more women like you.

The female characters you write are so unique, and real. What inspires them?
DC: Inspiration is a hard thing to talk about, because it’s hard to determine where ideas come from. I think some things are influenced by culture, and some things seem to come out of thin air. I do know that, for me, it’s an ongoing goal to tell women’s stories, and to tell stories [that] are in service of women. I’m just trying to tell offbeat, real, human stories that happen to have women as the center.

The Athena Film Festival runs February 7–10 at Barnard College in New York

Jacob Padrón stands along the “Script Wall” at Steppenwolf Theatre.

“Those who understand the value of community produce better art,” says Jacob Padrón, associate producer at Steppenwolf Theatre and curator of the theater’s Garage Rep, a showcase of Chicago-based storefront theaters. Padrón should know: Awareness of something greater has been a constant in his life, and it’s also what led him to Chicago.

Growing up in Gilroy, California, Padrón was heavily inspired by playwright Luis Valdez, who gave a voice to migrant farm workers by dramatizing their plight in plays such as Zoot Suit. The seed of what was possible for a young Mexican-American boy sown, Padrón went on to Loyola Marymount University, where, although theater was still on his mind, it was the idea of community that took hold. Says the 32-year-old, “I don’t think I had actually considered producing a viable career option.” Inspired by the idea of making a difference, Padrón worked at a local food pantry for patients with HIV and joined a Jesuit version of the Peace Corps.

After being accepted into Yale University’s School of Drama, though, “I knew I had to go,” says Padrón. In New Haven, he honed his already-keen organizational skills, taking charge of the Yale Cabaret and producing a grueling 18 shows in one year. He became aware of the need for unification in production. “When you’re putting on that many shows, everyone needs to work together or it doesn’t happen.”

Both this respect for collaboration and his organizational talent serve Padrón well in curating Garage Rep’s lineup, which he helps narrow from hundreds of submissions to three plays (this year, She Kills Monsters by Qui Nguyen, See What I Wanna See by Michael John LaChiusa, and BlackTop Sky by Christina Anderson). “I want works that are layered and textured,” he says of the projects selected, “that can be shown on their own or as part of a group.”

Padrón may have his hands full as a producer, but he’s also digging into personal projects, like Tilted Field Productions, his media company, whose latest project is a rock opera based on the life of Mary, Queen of Scots, and Project Luminarias, an organization he cofounded to help emerging Latino playwrights. Even when he’s not working, he finds inspiration in Chicago. Sums up Padrón, “The feeling of this city just makes me want to tell its tales.” The Garage Rep series runs February 14–April 21 at Steppenwolf Theatre Company, 1650 N. Halsted St., 312-335-1650

Between his part in the latest installment of the multimillion-dollar franchise Twilight and his guest-turned-recurring role on Showtime’s hit series Shameless, Noel Fisher has his hands full. “I love this job, I wouldn’t do anything else,” says the Vancouver-born 28-year-old, seemingly smiling on the other end of the phone.

Although Vladimir, the ancient Romanian vampire that he’ll portray alongside Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson, is starkly different from Shameless’ Mickey Milkovich, a sexually confused and violent teen, Fisher plays each of his characters with a raw sensibility. This might be due to the passion he feels for his job, and the excitement he gets from taking on difficult roles. “The most interesting characters to play, as an actor, are the characters that have really difficult things to deal with,” says Fisher, “I guess that’s what acting is, trying to show the struggles in people’s lives and how they act and try to overcome those struggles.”

Here, he discusses his passion for sci-fi, what it was like to work on Twilight, and the upcoming season of Shameless.

Congratulations on your role in Twilight! It’s a huge franchise, how does it feel to be part of it?
NOEL FISHER: I’m a big sci-fi junkie. Fantasy, action—I really love all that kind of stuff. Playing a 3,000-year-old vampire who is hell-bent on revenge is pretty perfect for me. I was really happy.

Twilight has catapulted the careers of many actors who are now major stars. How was working with them?
NF: It’s really lovely when you get to actually meet all these people, and they’re just regular people and they have a great sense of humor and they kind of just want to have a good time. They really do a wonderful job of creating a good atmosphere on set. You wake up every morning being [like], ‘awesome, I get to go to work today.’

Your role on Shameless has been turned into a recurring one. What can you tell me about the upcoming season?
NF: I’m really excited for everybody to get to see season three of Shameless. Selfishly, just for myself, I’m really excited that fans get to know a little bit more about Mickey, because he’s kind of been this peripheral character up until now. He’s this strange, closeted, violent person who you don’t really know that much about, besides his reactionary way of dealing with life. And I think it’s going to be really interesting for fans to get more of a glimpse as to why he is the way he is.

I’m excited!
NF: You’re not going to be disappointed. There are some really, really crazy plot points that are going to throw you for a loop and spin the whole thing around. I don’t know anything else that has the ability to take you on such a roller coaster of emotions that you’re hysterically laughing in one scene and then in the very next scene you’re sobbing.

Josh Berman at the Chicago Cultural Center’s Preston Bradley Hall.

Forty-year-old Josh Berman has been a leader of Chicago’s improvised, free-jazz music scene for more than a decade, but in a way his career is just taking off. Performing with such talents as Ab Baars, Jeb Bishop, Bill Dixon, Ken Vandermark, and Rob Mazurek, Berman came onto the scene as it was forming in the ’90s. In 2006 he cofounded the Umbrella Music Group, a collective dedicated to presenting and promoting cutting-edge jazz and improvised music. Now the group’s annual Umbrella Music Festival—held this month at the Chicago Cultural Center and other venues—is recognized as one of the year’s most influential weekends of jazz, promoting Chicago as a worldwide hub for improvised music.

Berman grew up in Elmhurst but spent a lot of time hanging out at places like the old No Exit Cafe in Rogers Park; his affinity for straight-ahead jazz in high school prompted him to give the trumpet a try. “I rented a horn from some place in Lombard—I was 17,” he recalls. As an 18-year-old, Berman started playing the trumpet for two hours a night, with his friend and colleague Weasel Walter on drums. “Ultimately I got so hung up with the music, I dropped out of Columbia College, and we moved to Wicker Park.... It was a ridiculous time,” Berman says.

He realized that if he really wanted to pursue music, he’d have to study. “Brad Goode, a fantastic trumpet player, liked my enthusiasm and gave me an appropriate instrument—he was ready to teach me how to do everything,” he says. But Berman was young and unfocused; he spent a long time struggling with how to play, how to practice, and how to create the music he loved and appreciated. “I dropped out of the scene for a long time and practiced. I didn’t really resurface until the late ’90s. If you want to be a great trumpet player, a composer, sadly, you actually have to learn to read and write music—you have to learn how to play scales.”

That effort paid off. A couple of years later, drummer and promoter Mike Reed asked Berman to start booking the Hungry Brain with him. Reed’s interest at the time was progressive jazz—a more consonant style—while Berman was more of a free jazz, noisy, modern music kind of guy. “He wanted to put a series together that split the difference between these two musics,” Berman explains. This curated series is now part of the Umbrella Music Group, cofounded by Berman, which includes three weekly series as well as this month’s Umbrella Music Festival. In 2009 Berman released the album Old Idea to critical acclaim, and he followed it up this year with There Now, released in July. “Being a musician is a funny life,” Berman says. “It’s weird when you get paid $11 for something you can get paid $1,000 for the next day.” The Umbrella Music Festival takes place November 7 through 11 at the Chicago Cultural Center and other local venues; 312-744-6630

Mike Daisey brings American Utopias to Chicago.

For a man who doesn’t mince words, Mike Daisey can be quite softly eloquent. Looking back over the path his career has taken, from actor to acclaimed monologist, he relates, “I love the theater very much, but I wanted to find a form that would allow me to explore my obsessions, to create pieces so that they would be composed in the air as they were spoken.” The angry man’s Spalding Gray, Daisey has been railing against the contradictions of the American psyche and the insidiousness of corporate culture for longer than a decade. This month, he arrives at the Museum of Contemporary Art with his latest solo work, American Utopias.

While his performances are laced with acid humor, there was nothing funny about the excoriation Daisey received this past May when doubts were cast on the veracity of The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs, his examination of working conditions at China’s Foxconn Technology Group, the electronics manufacturer whose assembly lines churn out beloved Apple products. Pundits had a field day; This American Life retracted a segment that included material from the show; and an engagement at the Chicago Theatre was canceled. The incident became the cynosure for a discussion of fact and fiction, reportage and poetic license. “Going through that experience was extremely painful and disruptive,” admits Daisey, “but it challenged me to examine myself and the way in which I work, and to ask questions in the deepest way, about: Why tell stories? Why am I telling stories? What does it mean to tell the truth? What does it mean to tell a story in the theater and to tell a story in the world outside the theater?”

With American Utopias, Daisey muses on the national propensity for locating within our weary lives some place to serve as a repository for the best idea of ourselves. His roster of seemingly disparate places includes Walt Disney World, the Burning Man festival, and Zuccotti Park, the small area of Lower Manhattan most of us had never heard of until the Occupy movement set up camp there last fall. “It’s fascinating,” says Daisey, “to look at the difference between a dream that is corporately approved, like Disney World, one that is incredibly anarchic but safely in a wasteland, like Burning Man, and an activist dream like the Occupy movement, happening in the heart of an American city.”

As one wired to vehemently question all hierarchical structures, Daisey is no utopian himself. “The closest I had to a utopian vision was when I worked at Amazon,” he reflects. “I believed we were changing the world, when what we were really doing was creating an online version of Kmart. But I think utopianism is an important impulse because without that animating fire, we come to believe that transformation is impossible.” American Utopias runs from November 1 through 11 at the Museum of Contemporary Art, 220 E. Chicago Ave., 312-397-4010

New Girl star Lamorne Morris relaxes at The Dime in Los Angeles.

“I can just walk right in, unlike most clubs, which make you wait outside like an idiot,” says 29-year-old comic actor Lamorne Morris about hitting up his favorite Los Angeles bar, The Dime. Better known as Winston on Fox’s New Girl, Morris cabs it to the dimly lit West Hollywood lounge early enough in the evening to snag his preferred window-seat table to relax with his boys, toast industry friends, or chat with the ladies while sipping Cîroc vodka and sodas. “The Dime is just the type of place where you feel at home,” Morris says.

Los Angeles wasn’t always home. Growing up on Chicago’s south side and in west-suburban Wheaton, Morris attended Glenbard South, played basketball, and worked part-time jobs at Walmart, T.G.I. Friday’s, and Hollywood Video. His class-clown antics caught the eye of a teacher who suggested Morris give acting a try, which eventually led to an audition for The Second City, setting him on the way to TV-celebrity status.

Morris was in good company at The Second City, bonding with fellow funny classmates Danny Pudi (Community) and screenwriter Adam McKay (Talladega Nights) during visits to Lincoln Park’s Kingston Mines after class. After graduation, Morris found regular work in New York as the host of BET’s HotWyred and the Cartoon Network’s BrainRush, but even then he felt the itch to head west. “The hosting gigs I got weren’t exactly what I was looking for; I wanted to get into movies and television.” After heading to LA on a whim, he discovered in The Dime a safe haven from what felt like a whirlwind life transition. Morris’s leap of faith paid off when he scored his spot on New Girl, but some things don’t change: You’ll still find the Chicago transplant at The Dime a few nights a week catching up with bartender Tess, listening to hip-hop, and making new friends. “I decompress from memorizing lines,” says Morris. “I get to chill and talk to cool people with no pressure of creating material and being funny.”

And while his character, Winston, may be devoted to hanging out with his quirky on-screen roommates (Zooey Deschanel, Jake Johnson, and Max Greenfield), the gregarious actor is happy to hang with whoever feels like socializing. “I’ll meet everyone and anyone for a drink here—industry friends, fun girls, best friends—even the minister from church!”

Liam Krehbiel in the offices of A Better Chicago at West Merchandise Mart Plaza.

Bringing new meaning to the term “angel investor,” Liam Krehbiel was working as a consultant at Bain & Company in 2010 when he decided to forgo the for-profit sector to follow a dream. Later that year, the Hinsdale native and Kellogg graduate founded A Better Chicago, a nonprofit organization that fuses good business sense with charitable giving.

Krehbiel likens his philanthropy to venture capitalism—a combination of both funding and management support. “Think about what successful venture-capital firms do,” says Krehbiel. “They look for high-potential, early-stage companies and provide the financial and intellectual capital to help them grow. We do the same thing.”

Like true venture capitalists, Krehbiel and his staff, which includes some of Chicago’s brightest business minds, spend months conducting due diligence on organizations before deciding to invest. Ideal candidates are already successful but lack the financial or tactical resources to realize their larger visions. Once a charity is added to the roster, A Better Chicago provides annual six-figure grants (funded by the board and local philanthropists) and guidance in areas in which the organizations need support—such as branding, communications, technology, business planning, and infrastructure development—and Krehbiel will seek assistance from one of his corporate partners. (Bain & Company and law firm Latham & Watkins offer their services pro bono.)

But to whom much is given, much is expected. “At the beginning of each grant period, we set goals with [recipients] and then we hold the organization accountable,” Krehbiel says. The model may be outcome-oriented, but it’s already garnering results. Learn Charter School Network, a group of college-prep elementary schools in low-income neighborhoods of Chicago, was one of three initial investments made by A Better Chicago. Schools in this network have become highly successful, with a 99 percent high school graduation rate despite operating in areas where dropout rates approach 50 percent. With the help of A Better Chicago, the network will open its sixth school in North Chicago this September.

In the future Krehbiel hopes to have a clearer picture of exactly how A Better Chicago impacts each organization it supports. “Four or five years out, I want to see how we’ve really helped transform the organizations that we’re funding,” he says. “I want to see that they’re on a stronger, better path than they were before we got involved.” He’s also holding A Better Chicago to the same high growth standards he sets for all the organizations he supports. His annual goal is to add at least three additional nonprofits to his portfolio over the next five years.

Second City—the Chicago-based comedy production that has launched the careers of such comedians as brothers John and Jim Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, and, more recently, Tina Fey and Steve Carell—is celebrating its 100th revue, with a show entitled Who Do We Think We Are?

Last year’s South Side of Heaven revue marked the Mainstage debut of ensemble member Katie Rich, a cute-as-she-is-hilarious comedienne in her second revue as part of the current cast. She talked to us about the improv process, and keeping a straight face (or not).

Was improv comedy always a career goal?
KATIE RICH: I got introduced to improvisation and sketch comedy when I was a freshman in high school and the fall play was a Second City-style revue. This was a very daunting and unique endeavor for a bunch of theater nerds, [so] our director took us to Second City one night to see how it was done. We saw Truth, Justice, or the American Way, which featured Steve Carell and Stephen Colbert. During that show my brain glazed over and said to me, "THAT! [I’ve] got to get into THAT!"

What is the writing process like, and how much of it is improvisation?
KR: The cast writes the entire show; much of it is scripted, but there is always an improvisational element or two in every show. We create most of the material through improv—taking our ideas and characters in front of an audience and seeing what happens. If it works, we script it. 

What is it about Second City that makes you love your job?
KR: Mike Hagerty, an alum of the Mainstage and a very accomplished actor, came to the show recently, and what he said to us answers this question better than I ever could. I asked him, point blank, if being on this stage is going to be the best job I ever have. He said yes. "You have a moment on that stage," he said, "and people are listening." More than 2,000 people come to hear what we have to say every week. It's a dream.

Have you ever started laughing on stage?
KR: Yes! There have been three or four times when I full on burst out laughing, and my laugh is not delicate or subtle. In those instances I just walked off stage and got myself together. 

Who are the comedians that inspire you?
KR: My mother and father are so funny because they are honest and real and never ignore an opportunity to laugh. They taught me that the worst thing you can do is take [life] too seriously. I would be remiss if I didn't mention Tina Fey. She has paved the way for a different kind of mainstream female comedic professional—one that can be celebrated for her vulnerability and femininity, instead of using it as a constant punchline.

Who Do We Think We Are? runs through December 5 at Second City. Tickets start at $23. 1616 N. Wells St., 312-337-3992