About Us
Welcome to Classic Chicago, the online magazine that celebrates the traditional qualities of a great world city. Chicago and its suburbs offer a wealth of historic residential design, pivotal commercial architecture, magnificent interiors and a rich social and cultural history rivaling any in the nation. Classic Chicago strives not only to report on this niche in a lively and entertaining manner, but also to document the people within the region and their style.
Virtually every issue during a standard season contains one or more Click/Clicks, typically photographs of people at a recent social event, usually a large, traditional occasion to benefit a charitable organization. This feature, which has been modified by the pandemic, will return in its original form when appropriate.
The theme of many of our features, whether labeled so or not, is The Best Revenge, which celebrates the “revenge” of living well, so notably cited in the Spanish proverb that shaped the style of Mark Cross heir Gerald Murphy and his wife, Sara. Increasingly, a classic residential property will be showcased in this department through photographic layout and description, often tying the property to its heritage and the glamour of previous owners.
Further recurring features include Philip Vidal’s column About the Town; The Classicist by Lucia Adams, and David A .F. Sweet’s two columns’, The Sporting Life and Unsung Gems. Others include Mary Ellen Christy’s Parenting, Elizabeth Dunlop Richter’s varied subjects, Lenore Macdonald’s Dispatch from Taos, Nick Wilder’s Photo Journal, Cheryl Anderson’s Postcard from France, Samantha Schwalm’s Talking Food with Samantha and Astro-Cast by Victoria Martin.
Both Stuart Dyer’s Vintage Vantage and Stanley Paul’s This and That frequently discuss vintage subjects. Travel coverage is expected to increase as life returns to normal, with the reappearance of our Dispatch department and Wendy Wood-Prince’s monthly Wendy Worldwide. In the meantime, we are continuing to publish Weekend Road Trips from Robert Glaze.
The magazine’s creators are Publisher Megan McKinney, Editor Judy Carmack Bross, and Style Editor Michelle Crowe.
Megan McKinney is the author of the prize-winning The Magnificent Medills, published by HarperCollins in 2011 and featured on the cover of The New York Times Sunday Book Review. She was a feature writer in the New York bureau of TV Guide: a magazine specialist in the Press Department of the CBS Television Network and editor of Chicago’s Avenue M magazine. She has written for Town & Country and Opera News, as well as Chicago, CS and Michigan Avenue magazines.
Judy Carmack Bross was a reporter and entertainment writer for the Houston Chronicle, The Fort Worth Press, and the Boston Herald American. She contributed the popular column Judy’s People to Avenue M magazine, has written for Chicago magazine, and recently published the non-fiction book, Murray Bay: The Gilded Age Summer Resort of Tafts, Sedgwicks, Blakes, Minturns and Their Friends.
Style Editor Michelle Crowe’s …Style Endures appears regularly in Classic Chicago. Her Instant Style column ran in the Chicago Tribune for more than five years. She has also written weekly features for the Tribune and served as Fashionphile columnist, writer, and stylist for CS. Nationally, she has contributed to PaperCity magazine, the Houston Chronicle, and led an editorial for the Banana Republic. Most recently she helmed Hinsdale Living as editor and contributed to Michigan Avenue, Indianapolis Monthly, and Wine Country magazines.
Classic Chicago’s Advisory Committee is composed of a distinguished group of members of the Chicago and suburban community, who have been selected because of their active participation in the area’s social, charitable, and civic affairs. They include Laurie Bay, Sarah Begel, Suzette Bulley, Gabriela Cleveland, Stuart Dyer, Annie Hambleton, Katherine Harvey, Collis Hillebrand, Cindy Hoyt, Stephanie McKean, Joan Moore, Courtney Pitt, Biba Roesch, Liz Sharp, Matthew Smith, Ellen Stirling, Margaret Mary Stoetzel, Alby Van Alyea, Philip Vidal, Brian White, Meredith Wood Prince and Alice York.
Contact Us
We welcome suggestions for editorial coverage in Classic Chicago.
General Editorial Content: To propose an individual, property, interior, historical topic or other subject matter to be considered for coverage by our staff or contributors, a proposal may be sent to the attention of Classic Chicago Editorial Board at editors@classicchicagomagazine.net.
Click/Click: A charitable benefit or other event may be submitted for inclusion in this section through an email with details of the proposed occasion, including telephone contact information, to the attention of Click/Click at editors@classicchicagomagazine.net. Requests should be made well in advance of the date. Space is limited and, because of the publication’s editorial thrust, well established Chicago events or smaller gatherings with a traditional sponsorship and participation will be given preference.
In addition to candid photography of the city’s premier social events and semi-private gatherings, Click/Click gives consideration to the publication of classic photographic layouts from private collections, personal scrapbooks or previously unpublished images from the albums of historic families.
Those wishing to be added to the permanent list of free subscribers may register an email address at editors@classicchicagomagazine.net.
Advertising inquiries kaywhitfield@classicchicmag.com.
