Spring/Summer 1994
Models
Christy Turlington
Liza Bruce
London
United Kingdom
Address
9 Pont Street
London
SW1X9EJ
United Kingdom
London
SW1X9EJ
United Kingdom
FMD-ID
BR36
Phone
+44 020 7235 8423 Fax +44 020 7245 9754
Website
About
founded by
Liza Bruce
belongs to
Liza Bruce
about
During the mid-1990s, Bruce expanded her product line in the U.S. while maintaining her large showroom and studio in London. She opened a large showroom in New York offering more affordable swimwear and activewear, and introduced a fragrance. Bruce wanted to have a home base in the U.S. to better serve her American clients, who include Barneys, Marks & Spencer, Charivari, and Saks Fifth Avenue.
Yet in 1996 Bruce went into a voluntary liquidation of her wholesale business due to several financial factors, including a long copyright dispute with Marks & Spencer and the bankruptcy of her biggest account, Barneys New York.
After a few years of regrouping, Bruce opened a small retail shop in London, selling to only a few selective American clients such as Bergdorf Goodman, Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue, and Harvey Nichols. Her new business once again features her popular swimwear, lingerie, and sportswear, and she planned to add jewelry and footwear.
The new London retail business was successful, and in 1999 Bruce returned to the U.S. and opened a store on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles. The following year she opened a small, 350-square-foot shop in Manhattan's Soho district. Of the new shop, Bruce told Women's Wear Daily, "It has a closet-like effect. I'm into how clothes interact with the interior."
Bruce's new approach of opening smaller, more intimate stores appeals to her desire to veer away from commercialism. Her new sportswear collections feature the same wearable and functional fabrics as she has used for her swimwear—modern fabrics that travel well. She has added Velcro closures to her clingy and stretchy pieces, and on some of her pieces she has haphazardly sewn in a label that reads, "Luscious Bitch."
The Look
In the eighties she was instrumental in the development of new Lycra based fabrics which she used to evolve her signature streamlined silhouette. For several seasons she worked exclusively with tubular fabrics and her preoccupation with streamlining led to her invention of leggings’ and the evolution from her swimwear collection of ‘the body’ as the basis of the emancipated wardrobe of the eighties; she was undoubtedly the undisputed queen of the Black cat-suit, and the swimsuits she designed for the Robert Mapplethorpe / Lisa Lyon shoot for British Vogue in 1984 express her determination that women should be seen as strong, athletic, emancipated and sensual; accordingly she developed a cut that accentuated the length of the leg, lifted the bust and emphasized the waist!
Who Wears It
Sienna Miller, Naomi Campbell,
Official Social Media
Liza Bruce Fashion Shows