JAMIE HAYES

Jamie Hayes (Production Mode) was a featured designer in our fashion show, A Celebration of Chicago Style. Learn more about the show here.

         Jamie’s interests lie at the intersection of fashion, art, labor, and identity. Her approach is both collaborative and customized. She believes that clothes should fit one’s body (not the other way around); that people should wear what flatters and interests them rather than what someone else dictates is fashionable; that style is a form of self-expression; and that everyone in the chain of production of clothing should be paid a living wage.

    She has explored these topics through her academic studies, earning a B.A. from Washington University in English Literature, a B.A. from Columbia College in Fashion Design, and a master’s in social work from the University of Chicago. She has worked in the fashion industry since 1999, and in the field of immigrant and labor rights since 2009. Her recent work merges these two paths: she has designed for fair trade organizations including SERRV, Intercrafts Peru, and Threads of Yunnan, and has volunteered as a Campaign Leader for Chicago Fair Trade, helping to pass an ordinance mandating that apparel procured by the City of Chicago be sweatshop-free. She is the owner and designer of slow fashion line Production Mode, and also co-designed a collection of luxury slow fashion lingerie and nightwear, Department of Curiosities. In 2017 she was voted “Best Local Clothing Designer” in the Chicago Reader, and in 2020 was named as one of New City’s “Design 50: Who Shapes Chicago”. Her work has been featured in Paper Magazine, Dazed, Elle, and on the cover of Billboard Magazine.