Bruna Santana caused quite the stir Thursday night at Gainesville Fashion Week with her swimwear collection, Zella Machado. The crowd oohed and aahed while guests and models flocked to the designer asking where they could snag themselves a swimsuit from the line.
Santana, who studied business administration at UF and will graduate this month with a master’s degree in entrepreneurship, never really planned on becoming a fashion designer. Her grandmother, Zella Machado (who the collection is named after and who is the other half of the design duo) has worked in the fashion business for 45 years. A bit of fashion wore off on Santana.
“I fell into fashion,” Santana admits. “I didn’t dream to be a designer.”
But working with her grandmother has been absolutely wonderful, she says.
“My grandmother is an amazing talent who inspires me.”
While Santana handles the business-related side of the brand, Machado handles the production and measurements.
“We make a good team,” she notes.
After Machado showed Santana a swimsuit she had prepared for a client in August, Santana readily proposed to her grandmother about starting a swimwear line.
“I was obsessed with the swimsuit,” she gushes. “It was absolutely stunning.”
The rest was history in the making.
After the designs were sketched and fabrics were bought, the duo made 45 suits in a mere week.
“My grandmother and I literally sat there for a whole week just saying, ‘OK, this color goes good with this, and this goes with this design,” Santana remarks. “I sat in a chair and my grandmother sat at the sewing machine.”
The current line is divided into three sections: girly girl, sexy bombshell and luxe resort. Each of these sections caters to a specific style that women may want and can been seen on the duo’s website, which was carefully crafted by Santana.
“Designing the website was my biggest challenge because I never took any website design classes.”
After getting tired of flaky website designers, Santana took zmswim.com in her own hands and it’s now up and running.
Her line debuted at CaribSA’s annual Fashion-Talent Show, put on by the UF Caribbean Student Association, in January. Since then, the Brazilian native and her grandmother have showcased their bold designs at Jacksonville and Miami Fashion Weeks.
The swimwear line Santana describes as “Brazilian style couture” was featured in Miami Fashion Week, a huge event for Latin American and international fashion designers.
“It was a chaotic but amazing experience,” Santana says.
Gainesville Fashion Week marks the designer’s fifth show.
Santana hopes to expand the brand well beyond the limits of swimsuits. The designer plans to add wedding shoes, red carpet and wedding gowns to her collection.
“Definitely keep a look out,” Santana advises.
After graduation, Santana will travel to Brazil, hoping to set up her business across waters in a swimsuit-demanding country.
“There’s a bigger market there for swimsuits since it’s summertime all year-round” she says.
As far as her competition with other popular swimsuit designers, Santana says she has a competitive advantage in that her brand offers custom-made swimsuits with unique designs.
For more information on Zella Machado, visit http://www.zmswim.com.