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Halle Berry Was A Very Cool Chick
In Chicago, Marshall Field’s & Company was the preeminent luxury retailer, known as the well-dressed granddaddy of all department stores in the Midwest. It was the 80’s and I, along with seven other senior art directors, were responsible for designing and directing the store brochures as well as churning out dozens of newspaper and magazine ads daily.
We selected the models, photographers and hair and makeup stylists. That made us rockstars, wielding lots of power and sway in the retail advertising industry. Cindy Crawford, Uma Thurmond, Kelly LeBrock, Jennifer Beals, Darryl Hannah, Chris O’Donnell, Anna Chlumsky, they all modeled for Field’s before VOGUE or Hollywood came calling.
One evening, while waiting around for an ad to release, I opened an envelope from one of the lesser-known modeling agencies in town. Usually way too busy to open every packet of comp cards and head shots that was sent to us almost daily from any number of agencies, this particular group would normally go straight into the trash. But killing time, I leafed through the stack of never-gonna-be models and surprise! I came across a fresh and pretty new face.
The model’s name was Halle Berry. She was listed at 5’ 6” which meant that she was really only about 5’ 4” and too short to be considered serious fashion model material. It also explained why she wasn’t with…
