Visit the Gardens of the Magnificent Mile in Chicago: Where Fashion Meets Botany

Every season of the year the Magnificent Mile of Chicago is dressed to the nines, from lights to holiday decorations to landscaping. During the summer months it is the gardens of the Magnificent Mile that shine, dramatic landscapes are created using bold colors, plants of different shapes, and flamboyant foliage. The garden displays always have great curb appeal and grab the attention of the hundreds of shoppers and tourists that file up and down the Mile every day.

This years gardens though, give shoppers and visitors to Chicago a reason to stop and take a closer look. The gardens of the Magnificent Mile have gone from botanical display to public art display, something Chicago has become known for. Seeing as the Magnificent Mile is known as the place to shop for fashion in Chicago, incorporating fashion into the designs of this years garden beds only seemed natural.

Students from the Illinois Institute of Art worked with fashion designers who are located on the Magnificent Mile to turn the garden beds into pieces of public art that showcase the world of fashion, or the world of fauna, depending on how you look at it. Other businesses and establishments along the Magnificent Mile, such as Loyola University Chicago, which has a Water Tower campus on the Mile created diplays that showcased not only fashion and fauna, but also their own role in the City of Chicago.

Each design team was provided with an empty canvas of sorts, a tilled and fertile garden bed and a torso fashion form. A theme had to be decided that would bring fashion into the landscape or incorporate the garden into fashion design. The ingenuity of the designer and student teams led to some really amazing concepts and eventually unique garden designs that now line the Mile. Casual strollers, shoppers young and old, and green thumbs will be surprised and delighted by the melding of fashion and flora to create a garden oasis within a few square feet. Additionally, there are a few free standing torso who's designs incorporate garden accents right on the torso itself.