Shale Baskin, founder of high-end clothier Mark Shale

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Shale Baskin

Updated: February 16, 2012 8:26AM

Shale Baskin could trace his roots in the rag trade from Maxwell Street to Michigan Avenue.

Around 1900, his grandfather, a Russian immigrant, was selling garments from a Maxwell Street pushcart.

Mr. Baskin built the classic clothier known as Mark Shale. At its peak it had around a dozen stores in the Midwest and the South, selling men’s and women’s upscale apparel. Customers included Bill Daley; ex-Chicago Bulls basketball coach Phil Jackson and former player Toni Kukoc; White Sox catcher A.J. Pierzynski and former Sox pitcher Jerry Reuss, and TV journalists Bob Costas and the late John Callaway.

Many of Chicago’s best-known clothing stores have gone the way of spats and the bustle, edged out by Casual Fridays, the rise of the discounter, online shopping and changing tastes.

Though it downsized and filed for bankruptcy, Mark Shale survived.

Mr. Baskin, who valued sharp clothing, enticing store design, strong customer service and a family atmosphere that kept salespeople with the company for as long as 40 years, died Jan. 10 from leukemia at his Chicago home. He was 84.

His father, Al Baskin, started his own clothing store in Joliet, where he raised his son, Shale. Shale Baskin went to Joliet Township High School and enlisted in the Navy when he graduated from high school toward the end of World War II. He was stationed in San Diego.

He came home to Chicago on leave and was transfixed during a matchmaking session engineered by his parents and the parents of Judy Seeder. The two adult couples brought their children together for a night at the Chez Paree nightclub. Shale was 18 and Judy was 15.

“It was love at first sight,” said Shale Baskin’s son, Scott.

When the war ended, Shale talked his way into the University of Chicago, in large part because Judy was going there, Scott Baskin said. He studied philosophy.

They married right after college, at the university’s Bond Chapel. They were wed 63 years.

“My dad said, until the end, ‘I have the most beautiful wife in the world,’ ” their son said.

Shale Baskin took over his father Al’s store in Joliet and soon opened another Al Baskin’s in Bloomington. Woodfield Mall developer A. Alfred Taubman recruited Mr. Baskin to open a store at his mall for its 1971 opening. But when Taubman signed a Woodfield contract with another retailer named Baskin’s, he told Mr. Baskin he would have to change the name of his store to avoid confusion.

“They sat around the kitchen table, and my father’s first name is Shale, obviously, and his brother’s first name is Mark,” Scott Baskin said. They changed the name of the business to Mark Shale.

“He designed, at that time, a very new and modern-looking store,” Scott Baskin said. “He moved things around each day so the store had a fresh appearance. It had a very contemporary look; lots of neutral woods.”

The company sold in 2009. It still operates stores on Michigan Avenue and in Northbrook and Oak Brook.

Mr. Baskin’s attention to customer service and his solicitude of employees were keys to his success. He responded personally to every letter or call from a customer, said David Janes, general manager of the Michigan Avenue store, who has been with the firm 38 years.

“He’d greet you, ask ‘How’s the family,’ remember your wife’s name,” said Howard Karman, who has worked almost 25 years at the company. “He would ask about your past and hobbies that you had.”

Mr. Baskin had a series of sailboats, all named “L’Kiam.” The Jewish toast “To Life” is spelled L’Chaim, but he anglicized the spelling for the benefit of the Coast Guard, said Scott and another son, Mike.

He loved to sail into storms, and “he was always getting into trouble, so he spelled it in a way so the Coast Guard could understand it,” Scott Baskin said.

When their children were grown, the Baskins moved from Joliet to Chicago. They enjoyed the Lyric Opera and Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

In addition to his wife and sons Scott and Mike, Mr. Baskin is also survived by sons Brad and Steven, and seven grandchildren.

Services have been held.