Author: Christy DeSmith

In 1970, Bob Rabin had flunked out of law school and was in search of a Plan B. A friend from Sheboygan, his hometown in Wisconsin, helped him land a job at KQRS, a fledgling station that was then headquartered in a small house in Golden Valley. Manager Dick Poe had just abandoned jazz format in favor of a format he called “progressive rock”—Eric Clapton, The Allman Brothers, Black Sabbath, and such—which was just catching on with the youth, hippies in particular.

“You’d get there in the morning and somebody would have left a cake,” Rabin remembered. Other fans showed their admiration in more novel ways. “In the 1970s there was this thing called streaking. Every once in a while someone would run through the station naked.” Then there were the groupies who would hang outside the sound booth, waiting for a certain good-looking deejay named Russell Russ to end his shift. “It was like a dream. There were so many interesting people involved,” said Rabin. He held his hand over his eyes and shook his head, as if trying to knock loose the memories.

While the jocks were spinning The Moody Blues and winning the attention of nubile women, Rabin was doing the less glamorous work of selling advertising for the station. In 1984, he would jump ship to Cities 97, when it, too, was a fledgling radio station, and he remains employed there today. Walking with a visitor through the St. Louis Park offices of Clear Channel, Cities 97’s corporate parent, coworkers greeted Rabin with a strange sort of reverence: Some did their best Wolfman Jack-style yips, while others emulated Rabin’s Milwaukee-ese.

Rabin is a fair-skinned, slope-nosed, stout fellow. He has huge, rounded shoulders that seem to swallow his neck. He admits to being a little world-weary after toughing it out in the business so long, having witnessed the radical, rather rapid progression to highly formatted, computer-driven radio from days when, as Rabin recalled, a jock could play love songs all night if he so pleased. He enjoyed similar liberties in the early days of his career. “When I was twenty-five, I had complete freedom. I set my own prices, I set my own hours. Now I’m in a situation at sixty years old where everything is completely structured.” Nevertheless, he has hung onto a jocular style of doing business, which can make him seem rather hapless and also endear him to clients.

Rabin pointed out a 70s-era photo of himself on his cubicle wall. “That’s how I really look,” he said. Running his hand over a bald spot and through his ring of gray hair, “This is just an impersonation of me.” Stumping around the office in khaki slacks and blue checked dress shirt, he hardly looks the part of the rebel he professes to be. “That guy on WKRP, Herb Tarlek, all the other guys used to look like him. They had plaid jackets and striped ties. And I was the guy walking around with a beard. I was calling on head shops and concert promoters. I never wore a suit. My hair was down to there. One day after work I was sitting outside with my neighbors when they asked, ‘What is it you do for a living?’ I said, ‘I sell advertising for a radio station.’ And they said, ‘Oh my God, we thought you were a drug dealer!’ ”

Still, certain concessions were made in order to bring in money. For instance, Rabin found potential advertisers he was calling on around the Twin Cities were put off by his real name, Rabinovitz. “I came from Sheboygan, where we had names like Latenschlager. But everyone up here was named Olson. They couldn’t pronounce my name! The first week, I was calling, leaving messages, and no one was calling me back. What I realized is that people up here in Minnesota don’t want to offend anyone. So rather than try to pronounce the name, they just wouldn’t call me back.”

Longevity in any career has its perks; in radio, some of them can involve celebrities. Rabin can rattle off a long list of encounters—everyone from Waylon Jennings to President Bush, Prince, and Emeril Lagasse. His all-time favorite rub was with Jerry Lewis, his idol, whom he met backstage at Orchestra Hall some twenty years ago.

Then there was his brush with John Lennon. It was 1975, and Tac Hammer, a legendary KQRS on-air personality and production manager, was listening in on a media conference call with the former Beatle, who was then plugging Rock-N-Roll, a tribute album to 50s- and 60s-era rock. Hammer handed Rabin the phone. “Some production director is just raking John over the coals—saying, ‘What do you want to do a Buddy Holly song for?’ And I’m listening in and I’m just furious! But of course, I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want Tac to be mad at me. And then a couple years later John Lennon is dead! And I could’ve stuck up for him! It’s one of those things you regret.”

The Stella McCartney for Adidas clothes get the haute treatment on their specially designed altar at Paiva, the new shop trading in high-fashion fitness gear at the Mall of America—track lighting even lends them a halo glow. Indeed, these hoodies, swimsuits, and track pants are not at all humble, especially by Midwestern standards. Those who make do working out in cutoff sweatpants and old-boyfriend T-shirts will surely scoff at the price tags—ninety dollars for a barely there running top, $160 for a see-through tennis dress. But for the marathon runners, masters swimmers, and exercise bulimics of the world—women who spend almost as much time in exercise gear as they do in regular types of clothing—items like die-cut singlets and mesh-inlaid running shorts will be irresistible.

As of yet, there are no numbers available to prove that active Minnesotans are actually buying this stuff. On the supply side, however, manufacturers are fusing high-performance gear with high fashion like never before. Fila’s impressive and upscale Biella line includes a $625 tennis dress double layered in super-soft, moisture-resistant polyester. Nike just introduced a line of hip-hop-inspired dancewear fashioned from Dri-Fit, its trademark technical fiber. But the designs seem overly reliant on gimmicks: quilted “gill” detailing imbues some of the Nike clothing with texture but also lends a certain holographic dimension, sort of like Hypercolor; while the corseted shimmels (in case you were wondering what to call those sports bra/tank top hybrids) lack support and, like so many others, don’t adequately cover the tummy. And the line uses coarse fabrics and a cold palette that dates to the early 90s, the golden age of hip-hop fashion.

From a design perspective, McCartney’s Adidas gear clearly crests this wave of high-end fitness wear. Her line has been singled out by fashion and style editors on both coasts and in between—one dubbed these clothes “too cute to sweat in.” Now the line is so highly coveted by retailers that Adidas has become rather persnickety about who can carry it, and how. Paiva can’t sell the clothing on its website, for example. Nor can it be featured in the store’s catalog; Adidas produced its own artful Stella McCartney supplement instead. But Adidas is only following the dictates of high fashion, which, after all, subsists on a strict diet of exclusivity and snob appeal. “We’re just lucky to have it,” said a Paiva publicist, who seemed almost humbled by the line’s actual presence in the store.

But what’s worth considering is how these clothes stack up in the real world, where many fitness subcultures still eschew the wearing of fussy duds. A $160 Stella McCartney for Adidas tennis dress will go great on the court—that sport has traditionally held hands with the fashion world. But the same doesn’t necessarily hold for running, say, or lap-swimming—solitary, more cerebral pursuits that tend to draw people much more intent on personal performance than on aesthetics. Can McCartney’s line unseat the traditionally unadorned, full-coverage gear perfected by un-sexy brands like Moving Comfort and Speedo, and win the slow-beating hearts and laser-focused minds of these kinds of athletes? That remains to be seen.

The word “cute” was uttered no fewer than five times when I test-drove the Mini. This is a car that appeals to my natural fascination with rounded objects. All those buttons and knobs on its dashboard? Cute. The big, round whatchamacallit, which is a tachometer, as my driving mates reminded me, but which is also, more important, reminiscent of a Swatch watch—super cute! On the exterior, the Mini has these adorable little dimples for exhaust pipes, and I couldn’t help but note the cuteness of these as well.

But “cute” had to go a long way before I could actually get excited about this car, or any car, for that matter. I suffer a form of “auto-aversion,” common among city-dwelling females and partly attributable to the increasingly complex nature of automobiles: the infinite possibilities for malfunctions, breakdowns, and repairs, not to mention crashes. But it’s also partly due to the men in my life—from dad to brother and boyfriends and now, finally, the boss—who have always been poking their noses into my purchasing decisions.

That said, being as it is so adorably compact and curvaceous, with ovular details in every little nook, I found the Mini rather un-intimidating as vehicles go. I had similar sentiments about the Volkswagen Beetle back when it was re-issued in 1998. Both of these cars look more like fashion accessories than insurance liabilities. As I slid behind the wheel of the Mini Cooper—an electric blue convertible S Series, to be more precise—I caught myself wondering: How do I look? And why on earth hadn’t I remembered to bring my Jackie O. sunglasses? Cruising by Highland Hills in Bloomington on a spring afternoon, I downshifted to second and slowed to a crawl, just to give all the good-looking joggers cause for checking me out. —Christy DeSmith

This scheduled test drive was slightly worrisome. There was some question whether the Road Rake and I, both horsepower heads, would be able to overcome the femme factor and just drive. We did, and the Mini did not let us down; although Christy did let out some worrisome noises when we tested its cornering ability.

As Sarah Britney, the salesperson at the dealership, said, this is a “BMW go-cart.” And if there are two things the Road Rake and I like, they’re BMWs and go-carts. Especially go-carts that will do eighty in third-gear, like this one.

This car definitely displays its BMW lineage when you take it somewhere near the limit. Acceleration, cornering, and braking are all in the wow zone. (Christy might say the EEEEE zone, coined when we took our first high-speed turn.) The handling is maybe the best I’ve ever experienced in a front-wheel-drive car. If you take a closer look at the car, the reason for this is obvious. The wheels are actually placed at the corners of the chassis, instead of being inset from the front and back, like most cars. So there is almost no lean in the turns, because there just isn’t much to lean out there beyond the wheel base. Unfortunately, this also means there’s damn near no trunk, but there isn’t much of one on a Porsche, either. If you want trunk, buy a Buick.

When Christy took the wheel, though, the Road Rake and I were holding our breath for nearly the entire ride. We both loved the car for what it was, but dreaded what Christy might say when it was her turn to drive. (If you want to know what that was like, here you go: I drove eighty-three miles per hour in third gear; Christy drove thirty-eight miles per hour in fourth gear.) We were finally able to exhale when it came. “This car is CUTE.”

Damn, and we—and the Mini—almost got away with it. —Tom Bartel

Gene and Jennifer Oberpriller rolled into work the other morning at about 9:00 a.m. They pulled up in front of One on One Bicycle Studio, the downtown Minneapolis coffee shop/bike shop/art gallery they own, and hitched their tattered, old road bikes to a signpost. Gene pushed his sunglasses into his dark, curly hair as he unloaded Hannah, the couple’s fourteen-month-old, from her Burley trailer.

It’s hard to resist labeling the Oberprillers as part of the recently coined “grup” demographic—grown-ups who retain their youthful cool, eschewing minivans and the suburbs even as they bear children of their own. For instance, the Oberprillers commute seven miles by bike, almost year round, from their home near Minnehaha Falls, arriving in time to greet the early crowd of fellow bike commuters who file into One on One for their morning brew.

The pair met as pro mountain bikers, both sponsored by Bianchi; Jennifer raced on weekends and holidays while attending the University of Minnesota, while Gene was able to make a modest income off the sport. He especially relished the itinerant lifestyle he lived on the U.S. race circuit. “It was sort of like being in a band,” he said.

As with being in a band, bike racing isn’t meant to be a lifelong career. After retiring, Gene did stints as a bike messenger and at the Alternative Bike and Board shop in Uptown. Both he and Jennifer also worked at Quality Bicycle Products, a distribution company in Bloomington. Gene was fired (twice), but Jennifer eventually became the marketing director. Jennifer lived alone during this time while Gene maintained his footloose lifestyle, hanging and rooming with local rockers and hardcore cyclists. In fact, he first discovered the building that now houses One on One—back then, in 1990, it was the notorious Yoshiko’s Sauna—when he took over a room upstairs from the drummer for Soul Asylum.

These days, Hannah is the most obvious sign of the couple settling down. Jennifer also does the accounting for One on One and oversees the café, while Gene curates the bike-themed art exhibitions and serves as the enterprise’s all-around style director. He selects the various offbeat brands, such as Bianchi and Surly, in which the bike shop specializes, and also deals in vintage bikes, hunting them down from as far away as Switzerland.

Then there’s the clothing and accessories. Gene believes that cyclists operate at the forefront of fashion trends, and so he’s always on the lookout for cutting-edge gear—everything from seventies-inspired “heritage” Adidas jerseys to One on One onesies and riding socks that assert “Your Bike Sucks.”

For himself, now that he’s something of a nine-to-fiver, Gene strictly eschews technical garb for the purposes of commuting. Instead, he goes for rock ’n’ roll T-shirts and rolled-up jeans. Carhartt pants are another favorite, especially when made into Bermuda-length cut-offs. He’s also a fan of Swobo, a San Francisco-based line of fashionable-yet-bike-friendly street wear, which includes designer tees and finely detailed jerseys—all without a lick of Lycra. Speaking of polyester, as the mercury pushes seventy, neither Oberpriller will be wearing the sort of high-tech, moisture-wicking fabrics that keep riders cool and dry. Both regard this style as being too fussy. In this matter, it helps that they’ve both put their racing days behind them, so that they can avoid reeking up the workplace. “We just don’t ride fast!” said Gene. “We ride fast enough to get there, but slow enough to not sweat.”

There are some who would contend that women can’t—or shouldn’t—block, hit, or tackle. But one Saturday morning in late April, the players and coaches who constitute our state’s premier women’s tackle-football team, were demonstrating just how tough the gentler sex can be. For the team’s annual tryouts, the Minnesota Vixen had congregated in the lobby of Klas Center, Hamline University’s student union. Even though there had been a steady downpour that morning, the team held out hope that some promising newbies would show, prepared to run through drills with the returning players. “In the rain?” whined a young offensive guard. “This is football!” howled an elder teammate.

Then Michelle Braun, a veteran center, marched in, her new, custom-made “Zena” shoulder pads in tow. “Are those the boob pads?” asked Sara Schoen, a lithe, thirty-something tight end. Schoen grabbed the silvery, robotic-looking shoulder pads, and fingered the breast plate, as if trying to figure the cup size. The problem with traditional shoulder pads, complained Schoen, is that they ride up. Some women cannot fit them over their breasts, and so must wear this essential equipment uncomfortably high on their shoulders. But these “Zena” numbers, tailored to fit a C-cup by prominent pad maker Douglas, are, Braun asserted, much more comfortable.

The players were dressed in waterproof pants and embroidered team sweatshirts. Bandanas were tied around many of their foreheads, or they wore their hair pulled back into ponytails and buns. Many of the teammates hadn’t seen one another since last season’s finale; as they gathered at four round tables, they dissolved into a huddle of chatter and hugs. Meanwhile, visitors and hopefuls were made to feel welcome. Life partners were introduced. Many women related stories of having played on boys’ football teams. There was even a little gossip; the juiciest tidbit involved the team’s twenty-four-year-old star linebacker, Kim Miller, a tall, thin (but sturdy) player who grew up in a Mennonite family of ten children. Miller, it turns out, is dating one of the team’s coaches, although her teammates seemed uniformly pleased by how professionally the pair has handled their entanglement.

Through all this, a trim, blond-haired young man with a wide smile and sunny disposition was buzzing about. Doug Farwell has never played football—the closest he came was marching band. But he now finds himself serving as the team’s volunteer president nevertheless, lured in by his wife, Carrie, an offensive tackle. Farwell busied himself handing out waivers, checking for proof of health insurance, distributing the player handbook—which included the eight-game 2006 schedule—and collecting player fees (one thousand dollars per player per year—plus equipment). The best thing to come of Farwell’s advanced organizational skills of late: securing the Klas Center Field, a modern, comfortable facility, for the Vixen’s four upcoming home games, where fans will finally be able to get a beer.

Farwell was not the only X-Y chromosome in this fray. The Vixen have seven coaches—all men. Segregating themselves at their own table, the coaches were rarely seen interacting with players. What’s with the all-male coaching staff? Men know the game better, having been given the opportunity to play high school and college football, claimed Head Coach Wayne Erickson. His explanation seemed reasonable enough, but then, venturing an amateur psychosexual theory, Coach Erickson attempted to elaborate, saying, rather quietly, “You know as well as I do that, in certain situations, women tend to become a little headstrong. One woman defensive lineman trying to teach another woman defensive lineman? That’s just not going to work.”

Out on the soggy field, the women were directed through endurance, agility, and footwork drills. A walk-on emerged as a promising candidate for running back. The participants in the passing drills consistently fired precise lasers and bullets; and as it turns out, naught a one Vixen threw like a girl.

“Big girls come with me,” shouted defensive coach Dann Lickness, gesturing with his arm. The self-identified burlier players scampered after him. Down at the opposite end of the field, they practiced blocking exercises. Meanwhile, the leaner quarterbacks, running backs, and receivers continued to pass and catch.

“This brings back so many memories,” said Dave Mora-Clark, a squat assistant coach. Although he had taken refuge off the field, and was now standing under an umbrella, he seemed to be getting only more drenched while admiring the wet fieldscape. Raindrops dripped from his eyelashes. “Now this,” he said, with a sigh, “this is football.”

There are several ways to get a free glass of wine in this city. You can attend one of the various “ladies nights” and be ogled by drunkards like a monkey in a zoo, or you can drop by a newly completed condominium project for its opening reception. One pleasant Saturday afternoon, in search of gratis Shiraz, my girlfriend Mary and I got dressed up, slipped on heels, and motored downtown to Minneapolis’ historic Whitney Hotel, where there was a reception to show off the building’s new loft conversions. Sure, I’d been toying with the idea of upgrading from the condo I currently own, but the Whitney, at $450 per square foot, wasn’t remotely within the realm of possibility, so long as I wanted my new home to measure more than, say, 250 square feet. I had been promised “real-estate porn,” however, and that is something I quite like.

We parked a half-block away, in the self-serve Portland Parking Ramp (later responsible for eating Mary’s last twenty-spot). As we approached the front entrance we were greeted by a half-dozen flannel- and denim-clad gentlemen who handed out fliers alleging that some laborers on the Whitney project had been overworked and underpaid. Their small protest was timed to coincide with the upper-crust showing I was about to crash.

Once inside the hotel, now called the Whitney Landmark Residence, Mary and I carefully pulled off our shoes (per the herd), so as not to fudge up the freshly laid hardwood. Playing potential tenants, we breezed through two model units—they were sprawling with high ceilings, and draped in all manner of romantic tapestry. Finally, Mary and I located the reception-area spread. There, we contented ourselves with melted brie, stuffed olives, chocolate-dipped strawberries, and peppered crackers. Near the buffet, representatives from interior design studios and fancy plumbing shops had set up trade-show displays and were doling out business cards. (You buy the condo at $450 per foot, but fundamentals such as bathroom fixtures are left entirely up to you.) Among these design-industry aesthetes, the norm was black suit jackets, blunt-cut hairdos, and pointy-toed shoes.

“Who buys these things?” I asked the Whitney’s chief financier, the nice fellow who’d invited me to the party. He said it was mostly suburban empty-nesters and the occasional trust-funder. As the room filled with potential buyers—by now funneling out of the models and sidling up to the buffet—there was a swelling current of contemporary-casual wear. Eyeleted, Ann Taylor sweater sets and Liz Claiborne-style chinos were the favored attire among women; for the men it was golf shirts and khakis. They were still stocking footed, all.

We left the party within forty-five minutes and walked out the front doors, only to find that the teamster rally had grown ten-fold. A few women had joined the fray; I locked eyes with one weathered-looking character who had long, frizzy hair and a royal blue baseball jacket. A party bus had parked nearby and rolled down its windows, flooding the scene with an ambient 93X broadcast. First Street was clogged with pickup trucks and work boots. “These are my people,” I said to Mary, in all seriousness. I felt a pang of guilt for having crossed their picket line. I grew up in a devotedly union household, and was raised to sympathize with welders and machine operators, to understand that the deck is stacked, that the rich get richer. But because I’d managed to claw my way to a more comfortable socioeconomic rung, something of me remained inside—in and among the Whitney’s exposed heating ducts.

Two days later, the clash of cultures still bothered me. I emailed the financier to ask how the protest had turned out. “The union stuff was mostly a non-event,” he wrote. “Other than people maybe mistaking it for a tailgating party.”

—Christy DeSmith

My older sister and I have this vulgar habit of putting dibs on our mom’s best stuff. Pointing to the valuable Roseville vases, crystal aperitif glasses, and heirloom doilies that were hand stitched by our great-grandmother one hundred years ago, we’ll march through Mom’s home, saying things like “That’s mine someday.” This strikes me now as being rather sinister, but Mom considers the behavior perfectly acceptable. She likes knowing that something of her and our forebears will endure.

What remains taboo, on the other hand, is the matter of cold, hard cash and Mom’s liquid assets. It’s impolite to talk money, you know.

I can’t be the only ungracious child to have invested energy in approximating my mother’s net worth. My algebra: Neither of my parents had been big earners, per se. But Mom did bank a life insurance payout when dad passed away, about seven years ago. I’ve never known how much. Then my grandma died last summer, and Mom inherited a little more. She has been provided for, I guess you could say, and I’ve always expected a similar fate was in store for me one day.

The “greatest generation,” of which my grandma was a platinum member, saw the rise of the middle class and is thus said to have squirreled away oodles of dough. Grandma started her golden years much in this way, having inherited plenty of money from well-off in-laws about fifteen years ago. But years of spending on health care and prescription drugs, while also floating her not-so-solvent loved ones, ate away at Grandma’s initial six-figure nest egg. And she wasn’t unique in her way; the old folks, by and large, are dying broke these days. Their baby-boomer next-of-kin can now expect to inherit on average just twenty-nine thousand dollars, according to the Federal Reserve. That’s enough to buy, say, a new Volkswagen or dig oneself out of some minor credit card debt. But it’s hardly the stuff of legacy, and probably not enough to keep trickling down the family tree.

As for the big-spending grandchildren and great-grandchildren of Generations X and Y? Well, they’ll make due with far less than twenty-nine thousand dollars. The estimated inheritance for children whose parents were born between 1931 and 1947 is nineteen thousand dollars.

These sorts of dire financial predictions have become fashionable lately—as I suppose they always do when the next generation starts writing financial advice columns. I’ve been hearing about the financial debasement of Generation X since college. And now a whole crop of youngsters is claiming to be the most maxed-out generation in the history of the world, and they’re writing books like Generation Debt: Why Now is a Terrible Time to be Young and Strapped: Why Americas Twenty- and Thirtysomethings Can’t Get Ahead. (Considering the macro-economic picture—that is, the federal deficit—they may be right after all. But obviously, no one cares about that sort of insolvency; it simply “doesn’t matter,” as Dick Cheney famously said.)

Yet there is gloom and doom thundering on the horizon that cannot be ignored. One estimate paints the average American as having eight thousand dollars in credit card debt. Most of us are not saving for retirement, regardless of age. Our health care costs are in a reckless upsurge. Our Social Security “net” is fraying. And as the lines between socio-economic classes continue to blur, even those of modest means have developed tastes for the finer things—certain downtown lofts and seventeen-dollar-per-pound cheeses, say. It all adds up to not very much. And unless we’re so lucky to have a rich benefactor (or two—that’s how it goes), most of us can expect little relief in the form of wealth transfer.

Mom couldn’t give Grandma’s old furniture away. But ears perked up around the dinner table one night, a few months back, when Mom broached the forbidden topic and promised to share a “little” inheritance with each of her children. How much? When pressed, Mom later issued an exact figure—five hundred dollars. Chump change. Initially misconstruing what “little” meant, one of my sibs offended Mom greatly in asking for several thousand dollars up front. Said Mom, rather testily, “This is my inheritance. Someday you’ll get yours.” And that was the end of that. —Christy DeSmith

"It’s the only high-fashion-slash-golf-school on the planet,” said local clothing designer Joy Teiken, standing in the doorway of the Como Avenue warehouse she shares with her husband, Craig, a professional golf instructor. Originally built in the early 1900s to manufacture tractors and other farm equipment, the front space retains a utilitarian air, despite the putting green and some black-and-white portraits of pro golfers.

But behind door number two exists Teiken’s ultra-feminine wonderland. Mannequins wear strappy floral sundresses and hats with silk boutonnières. Bolts of elaborate fabric burst from a wire rack or are otherwise scattered about the room. Colorful handbags dangle from exposed nails and random pegs, as if they were Chinese lanterns. A pink velour sofa sits before a giant treasure-chest-turned-coffee-table, which is all but buried in copies of W. Along a wall of south-facing windows, there are three sewing machines, and over Teiken’s worktable, rolls of ribbon hang from the ceiling as would the pots and pans in the kitchen of a serious cook—always within arm’s reach.

“I surround myself with things I think are pretty,” said Teiken, whose ideas aren’t born in the sketchbook. Rather, she lets found objects and fabrics dictate the direction of each item of clothing she sews. “A button or a pin or a buckle might be the inspiration for a piece.” A pair of oversized, vintage buttons, each with a tiny, bead-worked constellation, served to inspire a satiny, cropped jacket. A bolt of white cotton fabric, screen-printed with autumnal treescapes, informed a light-weight sheath and matching trench. “Once I find that thing that’s interesting and fun, I can take my inspiration from there.”

So, where does Teiken turn in her perpetual hunt for beautiful fabric and notions? Although she’s been spending much time in New York City and Chicago of late, doing fashion shows and tending to boutiques that stock her ready-to-wear, she’s got two local standbys: Melrose Antiques, in the East Hennepin neighborhood of Minneapolis, especially for old buttons and beads, and, of course, S.R. Harris, the go-to fabric store for any serious stitcher.

Not surprisingly, the resulting aesthetic leans heavily upon pairing old with new. Teiken likes taking apart vintage kimonos and using them to make handbags with feather trim and shiny Lucite handles, or to detail outfits made from newer upholstery fabrics. An old tablecloth recently came back to life as a crocheted, strapless dress with a trim of pink satin pleats—a creation she calls the “sleazy Easter dress.” She has a taste for flowers and plant life; and there’s a proclivity for including giant fabric buttons, shiny beads, and oversized bows wherever possible. But Teiken denies having any preconceived wants of the raw materials she hunts. When something hits, it just hits. “For me, it’s not about any one designer or time period,” she said. “It’s all about the feeling I get from it.” —Christy DeSmith

Clothing designers aren’t yet as numerous as guitar players, but sometimes we wonder if the fashion-show circuit isn’t starting to look a lot like the indie-rock scene. Despite what seems like a near-weekly occurrence of runway events, DIVA Minnesota’s annual affair is among the few absolute must-sees. For its 2006 fund-raiser, which took place last month, some twenty local designers worked a “femme fatale” theme, concocting killer gowns, cat suits, and 007-inspired jackets; we saw shades of Medusa, Cleopatra, and Glenn Close’s character from Fatal Attraction slinking and strutting around. But what really stood out, given the preponderance of bias-cut fabric and plunging necklines, were all the hip bones and clavicles. Sharper than any spike heel in the room.

—Christy DeSmith

With his wide-set, almond-shaped eyes and dark-coffee complexion, the statuesque Ini Iyamba possesses a sort of chiseled, architectural beauty, which is only enhanced by a devout commitment to fitness. The other day, he wore an outfit that complemented both God-given and hard-won features: closefitting jeans and a snug vintage tee, tight around the shoulders, with rainbow letters spelling “Fascination.” A daring pair of white, faux snakeskin loafers finished the jaunty look.

Iyamba owns Ivy, the Calhoun Square boutique that, in the year since it opened, has become known for its exotic, funky selection of denim and other casual clothing for women. But even while admiring gold-threaded hoodies and tiered cotton skirts, it’s hard not to notice how great Iyamba looks, whether he’s in an old track jacket or custom-tailored cuffs.

Finding out where he shops for his own clothes involved a tasteful display of his wardrobe staples in Ivy’s backroom: Jockey V-neck T-shirt from Target; knit pageboy cap; monogrammed, cashmere sweater from J.Crew; glow-in-the-dark, seventies-era Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey tee, a thrift-store find; reconstructed vintage Levi’s—a limited edition from Barney’s New York; custom-made black dress shirt; Puma trainers; and pinstriped trousers of uncertain origin.

“Dress pants are huge,” he said, holding this favorite pair to his legs. “I come from a culture in which everybody gets dressed up in their Sunday best.” Iyamba was born in Nigeria, and although he moved to the Midwest when he was ten (he attended St. Thomas Academy in St. Paul and the University of Wisconsin at Madison), in terms of fashion, it is the styles worn by his African compatriots that left a lasting impression. “In the summer, they’d have on their dress pants with sandals and a singlet,” he said. Later, he would cite their influence on his own penchant for fedoras and pageboy caps.

“Every man should have a custom-tailored suit,” he said. “But they’re not cheap, so a lot of men can get a custom shirt instead.” He showed how his black dress shirt had been darted at the waist. “If they’re working out, they probably have broad shoulders, so there’s going to be some excess fabric,” he said, gesturing with his palm toward his slender mid-section. “I have about twenty black dress shirts—the majority of them, maybe fifteen, with French cuffs. And I wear them like the French do: un-cuffed.

“Vintage, for me, is really big,” he continued. “It personalizes your wardrobe. All my vintage shopping is done at Tatter’s. My friends and I call it ‘The Dusty.’” Iyamba held up a classic Tatter’s find: a seventies-era polo sweater done up in bright orange and ivory stripes. “I was once offered $300 for this,” he said, in all seriousness.

With the first birthday of Ivy last month, Iyamba began stocking menswear. So far the offerings are light, but they impressively straddle the expanse between pantywaist and Navy Seal. They include dress shirts in contrasting floral and camouflage prints—sometimes in a single garment; a line of sandal-loafer hybrids by Lacoste that are made with Louis Vuitton leather; ball caps with skull and sergeant-stripe appliqués; and lots of high-buck designer denim—most notably, Evisu, a top-dollar line with cult status (thanks to various pro athletes and rap stars). Even at more than $300 a pair, Iyamba says customers have been gobbling these up. “But I actually like ‘em. They fit really well,” he said. So he’s keeping a pair for himself, too. —Christy DeSmith