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Bruce: "The Next Big Thing"
By: Eri Kim
Feb 2, 2002/ FWD/ --- This season Nicole Noselli and Daphne Gutierrez -- aka design duo
Bruce -- want to loosen up. They're not talking about their notoriously camera-
and publicity-shy personalities but rather -- what else -- their clothes.
"A lot of designers are doing looser shapes this season and you could say we're also doing
something less controlled," Noselli observes a couple of weeks before putting out their
Fall 2002 collection.
"But for us, we try to do things that aren't easily recognizable. We just try to evolve."
Exemplifying the brand's design evolution towards a less structured look are two black
wrap dresses with the pair's signature delicate details. Made of stretch wool that looks
like terry cloth, one has a lighter, sheer inset at the bosom and part of the three-quarter
sleeves is mesh.
Holding the below-knee-length dress together is a black rope, tied several times around the body. The other creation falls somewhere between an asymmetrical mini-dress and a shirt with diagonal pleats in the front. The effect is an understated peek-a-boo feel.
"Some of our old clothes seem heavy now, and there have been jackets where we would go
like 'How do I close this one?'" a laughing Gutierrez reflects.
"It definitely helped that we started to wear our own designs."
"We're also trying to be less 'subtle,'" Noselli adds, almost apologetically. "Though in
the end," she observes, "that's what comes to us naturally."
And there's nothing wrong with 'subtle,' since that's what put the two Parsons School of
Design graduates on the map.
Known for their eye for detail and ability to cut and drape cleverly constructed clothes
with off-beat sensuality, Noselli and Gutierrez, both 30, have been an industry favorite
since they made their formal debut in 1998.
Since then the pair has delivered nearly pitch perfect collections season after season.
Vogue has dubbed them "the next establishment," and last year, they beat out Imitation of
Christ and Alice Roi and were officially crowned "The Next Big Thing" when they received the
CFDA's Perry Ellis Award for Emerging Talent in Womenswear.
With all the accolades they've garnered and their wares being sold in exclusive stores
including Barneys in New York, Beverly Hills and Chicago as well Bergdorf Goodman, among
others, you'd expect that life must be pretty sweet for Gutierrez and Noselli.
But if anything, says Gutierrez, it's only gotten harder. Summarizing the story of many
independent designers, Gutierrez says, "If your business grows, your problems grow with it."
Part of the "problem" is that the two have to take care of every aspect -- from accounting
and production to shipping -- of their business themselves, and have to produce and deliver
at the same level as designers with a financial backer.
"Barneys probably doesn't realize that I packed the boxes myself," Gutierrez says
matter-of-factly. "Ideally, we'd like to have time to create, design and drape -- there
are so many things that we haven't even touched creatively because of the time and financial
limits," Noselli elaborates. "We want to create more than we do now. After a while you need
to be brought to the next level."
Apart from a more efficient business structure, having a sponsor would also take care of
another dilemma for Bruce: price points.
"Our trousers sell for around $450 and jackets are around $1,200," Gutierrez says, eliciting
a slightly desperate, "We do have shirts for $300, don't we?" from Noselli. (They do, just
not that many.)
"This is what comes naturally," Noselli says with a laugh, "making super-expensive clothes
we can't afford ourselves."
They would like to be able to have a line that's also affordable sometime in the future,
the two say, though that doesn't mean they want to spend too much time thinking about T-shirts.
But then again, lingerie or even hosiery might be fun to produce, too, Noselli says, though
she's quick to point out that it wouldn't be anything like "Donna Karan."
But after all is said and done, they "don't want to complain because we realize we're lucky,"
Noselli says -- they just like a little bit more time "to make something special."
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