Fashion

[15 to Watch in 2015]

Barbara Bell, stylist to the Strip

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Bell with one of her looks for the forthcoming Omnia nightclub. The designer is inspired by the likes of Tom Ford and Valentino and brings her love of high fashion into the functional realm of uniforms.
Photo: Mona Shield Payne

Miracle 1: Creating uniforms so stylish they don’t look like uniforms. Miracle 2: Doing it on the scale of a major Las Vegas casino, with a core team of three. Miracle 3: Winning contracts against industry Goliaths, because her approach to channeling brands in fabric is so fresh, striking and personal.

Barbara Bell is making the Strip hauter. The founder of Bell Uniform Design says that attitudes and performance soar when employees are sharply dressed. We’re talking belted lace minis in midnight blue and loud plaid button-ups with rust pants and prim little vests. Those looks were for Hakkasan and SLS, prestige projects that shot Bell’s 6-year-old company into the big leagues in 2013 and 2014.

Now she’s working on outfitting butlers at the Cosmopolitan and staffers across Aria, from the VIP pool to the new restaurant by Michael Mina. She is tackling the first-ever revamp of Wynn’s cocktail-server dress, and contending for that uniform program at Paris, Bally’s and Planet Hollywood. When Omnia nightclub opens at Caesars, her visions will add punch.

But her work isn’t just making the Strip look good. It’s spreading into hot venues Downtown and in Summerlin, propertywide at Atlantic City’s Borgata and San Antonio’s La Cantera, even in the cockpits of Nellis’ Thunderbird jet squadron. In fact, Bell is planning to go for more military contracts in 2015.

She’ll tell you her success is about “word-of-mouth and Google,” but what stands out is Bell’s bright, on-trend sensibility in design’s most functional realm. That, and Saturday-night house calls for sequin emergencies.

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