Chicago Fashion Week is coming back for its third year, running October 8 through October 18 with events and activations stretched across the city. The citywide schedule spans six official categories — fashion education, exhibitions, in-store events, retail markets, runway shows, and social events — packed into an 11-day run.
The festival's public kickoff, a runway show titled “A Celebration of Chicago Style III,” lands on October 9 at Millennium Park, set up right alongside Cloud Gate, better known to locals as The Bean. Per Secret Chicago, it marks the first fashion showcase staged in the park since 2015, and the showcase is co-presented by Chicago Fashion Vanguard and the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events. The 2026 lineup is a notable jump from recent years — the event ran 61 events across 49 venues in 2025 and more than 50 events in its 2024 debut, per Do312.
New Formats Join the Lineup
Two brand-new programs debut this year. “A Walk Down the Fairway” pairs a golf outing with a runway show at the historic South Shore Cultural Center on October 10, while “Stories, a Fashion-in-Motion Event” takes over Fishman's Fabrics on October 14 with garments built entirely from deadstock materials, according to the same Do312 report. Organizers are clearly leaning into neighborhood history and local fabric retail as part of the festival's identity, rather than confining everything to a single downtown stage.
That geographic spread goes well beyond the Loop. Festival programming reaches neighborhoods and suburbs from Hyde Park and Pilsen on the South Side up to Evanston and Highland Park to the north, the Do312 listing notes. Organizers have leaned on partnerships with local business associations to funnel foot traffic into neighborhood retail during the run.
Local Designers in the Spotlight
Nasreen Hussain appeared alongside model Emmanuel Jurineack on WGN-TV's Daytime Chicago to share details about this year's festival. Jurineack is represented by The Rock Agency, the Chicago-based agency serving as the festival's official modeling talent partner.
Organizers have also built out an Ambassador Program for the 2026 edition, enlisting local creatives including musical artist Zion Ali, content creator Brit Cooper Robinson, and Posh Heat founder Nikhil Kapoor to attend events across the city and gather attendee feedback for future editions, according to Chicago Fashion Week.
A Different Model Than New York or Paris
Traditional fashion weeks are often trade-only, while an earlier Chicago edition included 10 free events, according to The Columbia Chronicle. Organizers hoped the publicly accessible event would create business for participants.
The modern event traces back to founder John Leydon, who established it after his firm, Fulton Matthews, acquired trademark rights to the Chicago Fashion Week name in 2009, per the Columbia Chronicle's reporting. That trademark had previously kept city officials from using the name for municipal fashion shows, pushing them toward alternative branding for their own efforts.
Those municipal efforts trace back to Fashion Focus Chicago, launched in 2005 under Mayor Richard M. Daley and running through 2015, according to The Columbia Chronicle. That left a roughly nine-year gap before the current Chicago Fashion Week launched in 2024.
The current Chicago Fashion Week follows its 2024 launch. Full event details and registration for the 2026 edition are available at chicagofashionweek.com.
