Alice Berry

Biography

Wicker Park — Alice Berry has worked exclusively as clothing designer for twenty five years, earning her degree in fine art in 1980 from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. After school, Alice spent four years working in Paris for private clients, creating collections for small boutiques, showing textiles and clothing art in galleries, learning the business—developing a style of her own. In 1984 Alice returned to Chicago an opened her first studio where she designed and manufactured one of a kind clothing, which was sold privately and at boutiques such as “City” in Chicago. From 1984 to 1998 Alice worked with fabrics from designers and companies such as Junichi Arai, Japan; Memphis Design Group, Italy; La Soie de Paris, France; and Fisac, Italy furthering her style and craft. In 1989 Alice married her husband Tom and began to expand her business and her line, creating and manufacturing a line of knitwear. The first line of scarves based on interactive color theory and texture emerged in 1993. Alice gave birth to her son TJ, in 1995. During 1995 and 1996 responding to the changing times, Alice transitioned from one of a kind clothing to a line of scarves and simple, interesting clothing shapes. Her scarves with their unique use of fabric, transparency and color began to gain popularity. In 1997, Alice began to distribute her scarf line wholesale, selling to boutiques and museum across the U. S. and internationally. As a continuing investigation of her interest in color, texture and composition in design, Alice began works that were meant for interior and window treatments and these pieces were shown in galleries and homes. This more artistic direction of her work has become a separate medium to explore this developing interest. Most recently, Alice has been working with translating concepts from Abstract Expressionist painters such as Josef Albers, Mark Rothko and others and this work has been recognized by various museums around the country such as the Philadelphia Museum, National Academy of Design, and the Weisman Museum, among others.