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Owner of Clusiau Designs has ‘a certain classic flair’ - The Sant...
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FABRIC GURU
Owner of Clusiau Designs
has ‘a certain classic flair’
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Owner Nancy Clusiau measures fabric for drapes at her business, Clusiau Designs. Clusiau also has a retail
store in the front that carries gifts that she says are vintage, handmade, one of a kind and environmentally
and socially conscious. Jane Phillips/The New Mexican
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2013-09-09 9:38 AM
Owner of Clusiau Designs has ‘a certain classic flair’ - The Sant...
http://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/business/article_51c...
From left, Nancy Clusiu works with Jet Zarkadas of Los Griegos Design Studio at Clusiau Interior Design on
Wednesday, August 28, 2013. Clusiu is helping her customer find fabrics for her client. Jane Phillips/The
New Mexican
Chris Biederman shops last week at Clusiau Designs. The business, 901 W. San Mateo Road, Suite W, is
open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday-Friday, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday. Phone is
466-2712; Internet address is www.customsantafe.com. Jane Phillips/The New Mexican
Posted: Monday, September 2, 2013 8:00 pm | Updated:
10:22 am, Tue Sep 3, 2013.
By Dennis Carroll
For The New Mexican |
0 comments
Her company tucked into the small Ironstone Gardens business center on San
Mateo Road, Nancy Clusiau sits daily at her sewing-machines stitching out-sized
pillow cases, hemming a silk slipcover or or perhaps pressing grommets into faux
silk floor length curtains.
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2013-09-09 9:38 AM
Owner of Clusiau Designs has ‘a certain classic flair’ - The Sant...
http://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/business/article_51c...
Clusiau, 51, owner of Clusiau Designs, has been sitting in front of sewing machines
most of her life since stitching away the the cold, rainy summer days at her
parents’ cottage in Thornhill, Ontario, near Toronto.
“My mom would buy the fabric, and I would always make my own clothing,”
Clusiau said. “As I got older, I continued to make my clothes and I thought I
should go into fashion because this is what I do.”
After getting a fashion degree from Ryerson University in Toronto, Clusiau started
up her own design business working out of her home wherever she happened to be
living at the time.
She and her husband, John, a mental health counselor, found themselves in Santa
Fe in 1994, and Clusiau set up her sewing machines in her Eldorado garage,
focusing less on clothing (“I got tired of doing wedding things.”) and more on
everything else, particulary home interiors. “I do everything — slipcovers,
cushions, pillows, bancos, bedding, draperies … all the soft goods for the home.”
And while Clusiau doesn’t do quilting or upholstery, she sends those projects to
those who do. “I will get fabric quilted and then turn it into a bedspread or
whatever.”
She left her garage for her current location about five years ago, settling into
Ironstone Gardens at 901 W. San Mateo Road with a handful of other small
businesses among the stone sculptures and waterfalls of Santa Fe Stone.
The move into town came after she began running out of room for her fabrics and
she realized that “only so many people were willing to drive out to Eldorado.”
Clusiau’s two sewing machine, a blind hemming machine and a grommet presser,
sit at the back of the shop among long tables loaded with rolls of leather, linens,
silk, wool and whatever other fabrics Clusiau and her two employees are shaping
into something decorative and useful. Nearby are pillows large and small, a duvet
cover or two and a bedspread in the making.
“I buy what I love,” Clusiau said. “I don’t buy stuff I don’t think is really cool.”
On this particular day, Abigail Adler was looking for fabrics that Clusiau could
turn into pillows. “I like coming to and supporting local businesses,” said Adler, a
news reporter at KSFR radio. “And Nancy has a certain classic flair.”
Clusiau said she turned the front of the shop into a collection of “interesting,
eclectic things for the home” such as tea towels, coffee cups, soap dishes, candles
and assorted ceramics after people would wander into the store and “act like they
were looking for something.”
Clusiau Designs is at the end of building that also houses yoga, dance and Zumba
exercise studios, and across from the Midtown Bistro.
“Sometimes (the Zumba people above Clusiau’s) will ask if they are being too
loud,” said Kathy Carey, who tends to the retail side of the business.
As for the future, Clusiau doesn’t foresee any major changes in the works — just
steady growth through continued reliance on repeat customers and word of
mouth. “That’s pretty much how it’s always been,” she said.
Contact Dennic Carroll at carroll.news1@gmail.com
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