Gina Kimmel expands vintage lingerie lines

Hoffman Estates native Gina Kimmel has found herself coming full circle. After her divorce from husband, comedian Jimmy Kimmel, she eventually returned to the Chicago area. She also picked up a career where she redesigns classic Hollywood lingerie and parlayed it into an online business last year.

Gina Kimmel has launched Maddy James, an online retailer of vintage-inspired lingerie from the 1920s through 1960s. She takes the classic styles and updates them with new materials and tailoring to make sure they fit and are useful for modern women, she said.

“I’m just too old for Victoria Secret,” the 50-year-old joked. “But I felt something was missing in that industry, something glamorous and pretty and special and yet something that can still be worn and was affordable.”

Gina’s path to vintage clothing started after she left Northern Illinois University after a year. She then went to Arizona State University to be in warmer weather and closer to her father after her parents divorce. While at Arizona, she met Jimmy Kimmel. They married in 1988, raised two children, then divorced about 15 years later. Their daughter Katie, is now 23, and Kevin is 21.

While living in California, Gina worked as a costume designer and worked on TV movies, including “Party Like the Rich and Famous,” among others.

She also launched an apparel business in Los Angeles, she said.

“But I was such a little fish in a big pond,” she said.

By 2012, she returned to Chicago. She attended a fashion program at Harper College in Palatine, which was helpful in her launch of the vintage lingerie idea. That’s also where she met April Pruitt of McHenry, who became her business partner in the company.

They started a Kickstarter campaign last year and it helped them raise enough money to launch the company, Maddy James, which inverts the name of her father, James Maddy.

“I always liked the name Maddy James. It sounds like a romance novelist would use that name,” she said.

She also enjoys collecting vintage clothing and other items, she said.

“I love the art-deco period and my apartment looks like something from 1938,” she said.

That love of vintage items also extends to her company, which features nightgowns, robes and other items in classic styles. The company is featuring its line at the Chicagoland Vintage Clothing Jewelry Show at the Hemmens Cultural Center on Feb. 27-28 in Elgin.

“We’ve taken the past and made it modern,” she said.

Pinstripes CEO talks expansion

Dale Schwartz, founder and CEO of Pinstripes Inc., said he will introduce a unique indoor/outdoor dining and entertainment venue at 435 E. Illinois St. in downtown Chicago. It will feature Italian-American food and wine; bowling lanes and indoor-outdoor bocce courts; an outdoor patio, fireplace and bocce courts; and banquet spaces for up to 600 people for weddings, birthday parties, and corporate events. Pinstripes has six other locations, including Northbrook, South Barrington and Oak Brook.

FastTracks

Pest control expert Phil McCloud purchased McCloud Aquatics, an aquatic weed and algae control company in Schaumburg, from his brother, Chris McCloud. He then moved it to a new, expanded headquarters in Elburn last month. The company manages about 1,200 ponds and lakes in northern Illinois and plans to expand its services into southern Wisconsin. Phil McCloud and his son, T.J., a vice president of the company, are the fourth and fifth generation members of his pest control family to serve in a McCloud company. McCloud’s father, Tom, serves as a family adviser. Another fifth generation member of the family, McCloud’s second son, Josh, runs HoldFast Enviro Pest Solutions in Missoula, Montana.

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Harit Talwar, president of U.S. Cards at Discover Financial Services, will join the board of directors of Trustmark Mutual Holding Com. in Lake Forest. Discover has operations in Riverwoods. … William McElroy, of McElroy Pediatric Dentistry of Bloomingdale, is launching its First Smiles Program for National Children’s Dental Health Month during February. The program will provide free exams for children under 2. … Scott Latter has been promoted to vice president at Entrust Realty Advisors in Lombard. … Gurbax Saini will start seeing patients at Advocate Medical Group in Island Lake.

• There’s more to business than just the bottom line. We want to tell you about the people that make business work. Send news about people in business to akukec@dailyherald.com. Follow Anna Marie Kukec on LinkedIn and Facebook and as AMKukec on Twitter.

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