This week’s Made in Chicago is a Lincoln Square import business that’s busy dressing customers for Oktoberfest.
Owner Ingrid Kaltenboch has a test for women when they aren’t sure a dirndl is the right size: see if they can hold a beer stein comfortably.
That’s because drinking is a big part of the annual celebration in Munich that brings customers to International Fashions by Ingrid.
The small shop is full of dirndls and lederhosen - some still wrapped in the plastic they were shipped in from Germany.
Ingrid showing off dirndls
Nancy Harty
Ingrid buys lederhosen made of goatskin, which is softer than the cow leather version one client found online and stood upright on her display case.
She immigrated to the US in 1965 and used to work in the shop next door to her business before eventually buying it from the owner in 1978.
Ingrid says she doesn’t have a succession plan herself other than to keep using her keen eye to correctly fit customers in the traditional clothing.
If she retires as planned in about two years, her shop will join the likes of Cafe Selmarie, Delicatessen Meyer and Chicago Brauhouse that have closed in the neighborhood once called Germantown.
