Skip Grisham, Chicago Fashion Show Producer, Dies

CHICAGO — Skip Grisham, a longtime fashion show producer, director and set designer here, died earlier this week. The cause of death has not been revealed, nor was Grisham’s age. Grisham most recently served as artistic director of the Driehaus Design Initiative (DDI) annual fashion show competition, a position he held for the past 18 years. He also produced the long-running Rush University Medical Center’s charity fashion show for 29 years until 2005. “He was a man of style before we knew what that meant,” said Tracey Tarantino, fashion show producer at DDI. “He was a visionary, before we had one show wrapped, he’d already have his mind accelerating on the next year’s show.” The DDI fashion show competition, which Grisham created with the support of investor Richard Driehaus, provides students with scholarships and the proceeds from the event go toward fashion colleges to be used in programs to benefit students. Wendy Krimins, general manager of Neiman Marcus Michigan Avenue, worked with Grisham on the DDI show. “I had the pleasure of working with Skip since 2016 as a member of the student judging panel. He really cared about the students and was very encouraging and supportive of the creative work they were doing in

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