The Man in the Technicolor Suit

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I think this guy is great.

Meet the man in the Technicolor suit

By Colleen Mastony , Chicago Tribune
Sunday, June 29, 2008

CHICAGO - As the tour boat approaches, the man standing on Chicago's State Street Bridge launches into his signature dance, spinning to the left, then spinning to the right. He's wearing a bright pink suit and, as the tour boat passes on the river, he whips off his jacket and waves it around his head.

"Say hello to Suit Man!" bellows the boat tour guide, as the crowd erupts in applause and cheers. "You'll never see him in the same suit twice!"

Meet Vincent Falk, otherwise known as Suit Man, Fashion Man or even Riverace (a play on Liberace) for the hundreds of dazzling suits - glittery gold, lime green, cherry red, powder pink - that he wears with unmistakable delight.

Legally blind since birth, Falk works by day as a computer programmer for Cook County, Ill. But in the evenings, you'll find him on the bridges. And at 10:30 p.m., Falk can usually be spotted in the final scene of the WLS-Ch. 7 news broadcast. As the camera pans to the crowd outside the State Street studio window, there's Falk spinning in all his fluorescent glory.

"My philosophy in life is to make people happy," says Falk, 58, who lives alone in Marina Towers and has no family. His closest relative, a foster mother, died a few years ago. Yet on the sidewalks of the city, Falk has found a place and a purpose. "If I can get people to giggle and laugh, that makes me happy."

With this simple ideology, Falk has developed a loyal following. On the bridge, a speed-walking woman in workout gear calls out: "Hey, Vince! Nice suit today!" A moment later a man, dressed in camouflage pants and a baseball cap, stops to shake Falk's hand. "You always bring a smile to our faces," he says. Down on the river, another boat passes, and the tour guide calls out, "Give it up for Fashion Man!"

Born with glaucoma, Falk was abandoned as an infant. They called him Vincent because - according to family lore - he had been found on the steps of St. Vincent de Paul Church in Lincoln Park, Ill. He went to live at St. Joseph's Home for the Friendless, then an orphanage on the South Side. When he was 8 years old, Mary and Clarence Falk, a couple from Roselle, adopted him.

It was around the time of his mother's death that Falk started waving at the boats. When the boats honked, it gave Falk a little lift. And soon the boat drivers found they were looking forward to seeing Falk too.

"If he wasn't out there, it was like, 'Where's Fashion Man?"' says Saleem Muhammad, 28, captain of the Seadog I. At first, Falk waved. After a few weeks, he added a spin and started swinging his jacket.

"He's gotten to be a Chicago attraction. We've made him a part of our tour. We say, 'There's the Sears Tower, and there's Fashion Man!' says Muhammad. "The boat goes crazy, and it lightens up the day."

When WMAQ-Ch. 5 opened a street-side studio in 2003, Falk became a fixture outside the window. The early morning show's producers eventually incorporated Falk into their program, giving him a 5-second segment at the end of their Friday morning broadcast.

"At 6:59 a.m., we'd say, 'We're spinning into the weekend,'" recalls Dick Johnson, then the morning anchor. The camera would cut to Falk, dressed in his neon outfit, doing his signature spin.

All of which is how a man who was once adopted by a loving couple from Roselle was eventually adopted by the city.

"He doesn't have family in town anymore; those tour boats, they're his extended family," says Johnson.

With a sense that the world had something to learn from Fashion Man, Jennifer Burns, 36, an actress and a waitress at Smith & Wollensky, began following Falk with a camera in 2005.

She has since produced a 90-minute documentary about Falk, called "Vincent: A Life in Color," which is now in the final stages of postproduction.

"What have I learned from Vince? Learning to live in the moment is huge," says Burns, who is looking for a distributor for the film. "Learning to not care so much about what other people think of you, that's big. But I think the biggest lesson is to realize being different doesn't mean being strange. What a boring world this would be without the Vincents."

Not everyone delights in Falk's quirky personality. Last year, Channel 5 decided to cut Falk's spin segment. And Falk, hurt by the rejection, moved over to the WLS-Ch. 7 studio. But there, station officials have complained that he is distracting and they now regularly cut Falk out of the nightly crowd shots.

Still, Falk has his fans. Outside the Channel 7 studio one night, Mariana Mikutis, of Glen Ellyn, Ill., says, "We look for him on the news every night. We always want to see what color he's wearing." Nearby, Shannon Milliken, 29, says, "He's a Chicago icon." Falk - dressed in a gold suit - smiles at the praise and then spins for the crowd. He whips his jacket around in the air, as his audience gives a smattering of applause.

"Someone is in the pink," Falk says to a woman in a pink T-shirt. The woman looks Falk up and down, uncertain what to make of him. "I'm so blue about it," he says, pointing out his blue tie and trying again to get the woman to laugh.

"You look great," the woman offers with a grin.

"If I was wearing purple," Falk replies. "I'd be grape!"

The woman laughs. And thus, once again, Falk - the man in the crazy suit who just wants to make people happy - has achieved his goal.

Where does the Suit Man get those crazy jackets?

Where does he get those crazy outfits?

Closets are literally everywhere in Vincent Falk's one-bedroom apartment. There are closets in the living room, in the bedroom, in the hallway and just outside the bathroom. Eight closets in all hold hundreds of outfits. (Three closets are built-in units, and five are movable armoires.) Open a closet door, and you'll see a rainbow of satin, polyester and silk, all arranged by color.

Asked why he likes such wild ensembles, he shrugs and says: "I just like the bright colors." Asked how he feels in the suits, he says: "Maybe the way you feel when you put on a nice outfit."

When Falk began wearing his bright suits more than 20 years ago, he bought most of his jackets and ties at thrift stores. But as years passed and his salary grew, Falk began perusing the racks at Roberto's, 214 S. State St., a shop that sells your typical gray pinstriped attire alongside three-piece jacket/vest/trouser sets in every imaginable pattern and hue, from tiger stripes to teal.

Looking for a pair of lavender snakeskin wingtips? Roberto's is your place. Most of these flamboyant get-ups are sold to entertainers. Says Roberto, the shop's owner, "Vincent is the only person who wears them on the street."