There are two kinds of Chicago flyers and you already know which one you are.
MDW people have a whole thing about it. Midway is closer to the neighborhoods, faster to get in and out of, and it carries this underlying Southwest Side energy that the other airport simply does not have. You park, you walk, you are at the gate. No train odyssey. No terminal marathon. Just Chicago, compact and direct, the way the city actually operates when it is not performing for tourists.
Strange Allies built the MDW sweatshirt for the people who have always felt that way but never had the gear to prove it.
The chest graphic is a vintage airplane from above, rendered with serious distress and a Chicago flag detail on the fuselage, stars and all. The MDW code sits below in wide block letters, worn and confident. Chicago Midway International Airport has been running for over 100 years, and it carries that history in its bones. This sweatshirt carries a little of that too.
It is for the Garfield Ridge families who grew up with the planes overhead and never once minded. For the Pilsen creative who takes MDW because it is twenty minutes from the studio and there is no debate about it. For the flight crew that prefers this airspace professionally and personally. For the traveler who came to Chicago for a long weekend, ate half of Chinatown, walked the lakefront, and left wanting to tell everyone they knew about it.
This is the souvenir for the Chicago trip that actually got under your skin. Not the Navy Pier version. The real one.
Wear it on the Orange Line. Wear it at a backyard cookout in Back of the Yards. Wear it anywhere you want to represent a side of Chicago that has been here longer than the hype.
And if you need a gift for the most Chicago person you know, the one who will immediately clock the MDW reference and appreciate it without you having to say a word, this is it.