On naïvety, youth, and 70s Playboy with Nude Project’s Bruno Casanovas

On a warm April afternoon in Amsterdam, Bruno Casanovas sits at a tiny table by the Glamcult Store, blinking away the sunlight and pensively playing with one of his chrome rings; evoking a gregarious aura, he’s breezy and confident. In less than 24 hours from this vignette, the grand opening of Nude Project’s first flagship in Amsterdam (and, by an even greater extension, the first store outside of Spanish lands) is due. In anticipation of the event, we caught up with him and spoke about what it takes to get to such a monumental juncture in one’s life, considerably by the ripe age of 25. Coming up with a brand idea at 19, he sidled with naïve steps (as he himself describes it) towards the empire that was to become of Nude Project. Amassing well over one million disciples and 7 prosperous physical shops, the lifestyle brand seems to be on a continuous expansion journey. But how does one make it, in the most practical of senses? Casanovas puts out his words of encouragement for young creatives, his stance of anti-seriousness, and of love for the world.

Hey Bruno, how are you? What’s up?

I am good. I’m excited for tomorrow. I’m also nervous, but, overall, we’re in Amsterdam, and it’s sunny, you know? What can I even complain about?

It’s the one day of sun you get in this little city. How’s Amsterdam treating you?

It’s been a city that I always felt connected to. I try to measure the connection with a city by my relation to the taxi driver that picks me up. So, if I connect with a taxi driver, I know I’m good, and I always had that with taxi drivers in Amsterdam. It’s always a chat, and it’s gorgeous – they’re nice, they’re friendly, they’re open, they’re honest. So, it’s everything I like in humans.

I love it. I’m very happy to hear. What’s your favourite thing that happened to you recently?

What a question. It’s gonna sound impulsive, but it definitely is the store we’re about to open here. Aside from all the renovation, I physically went for the first time two days ago and saw it in its final form. Starting a brand six years ago, and now walking in Amsterdam, one of my favourite cities, having a physical store here is insane. I went running in the morning at 7 a.m. because I couldn’t sleep as I was so nervous, I was like, fuck it, I’m gonna go run. I’m gonna try to be healthy. And then I started running, and just randomly, I came across the store.This store is huge as a mess. And then I went inside, and I was just in awe because to see so much work put into one place and finally becoming material, it’s very chilling. 

I can imagine. It sounds very blissful. 

It’s dreamlike. 

Can you bring me back to the very beginning of your project?

Yes, of course. We started when we were 19, so it’s six years ago now. It was very naïve of us that we just kind of wanted to do fun things at that moment. There was no concrete vision or mission.  We just wanted to do something we thought was cool. And we felt like at that point in Spain, where we’re from, there wasn’t a brand that represented us or what we wanted. We wanted a brand that felt close, a brand that felt human, a brand that we could connect with, that aspired to be something more than just fashion in some sense. We wanted a brand that represented our generation. I think we’re youthful, we’re fun, and I think it’s a generation that sometimes has gotten mistaken for people that don’t like to work or that are not as ambitious, and I don’t think it’s true. There’s a lot of nostalgia of the past and how that was better. And I think the now is cool as fuck. Yeah, I think we should embrace it more.

When I listen to songs from around 10 years ago, I feel like so many people were talking a lot more about youth culture and praising that. And in contrast, now it’s almost a lost art. But either way, it’s deeply inspiring, especially to be 19.

No, no, I was a mess, I didn’t know anything. We’re just kind of lucky enough that we didn’t know anything, but we were innocent enough to believe we could do it. And when you’re that naive, you kind of fuck up along the way many times. But if you’re resilient enough or you really love something and you really want to do it, you kind of just do it… And we’re here. Let’s see where life takes us.

How come it’s Amsterdam and not another place? 

I think Amsterdam’s just like a complete energy match with our brand. I think our brand is all about fun.

It’s all about honesty. It’s all about pop. It’s all about that you can do anything you want as long as you don’t disturb your neighbour. That’s the energy we’ve always had. And I feel like Amsterdam embodies that in a city. I think there’s not a lot of judgement. It brings in anyone from anywhere. I feel like you can be in a place with, for example, one super creative person, one super serious person, but they can all kind of work and coexist in a place. I think that’s why this is meant for us.

Sweet, it definitely is that, it has a particular energy. Can you tell me more about you as a person before, in the midst of creating this? How do you tie your personality to your brand? 

I think the brand’s really become a very big creative outlet to what I am. It’s my only creative outlet, I would say. So the brand has become necessary for me to function at this point. I don’t know if I’m as important to the brand anymore, but the brand is very important to me because I need somewhere to create. Whether it could be a podcast, whether it could be an edition of the newspaper we did, whether it’s campaigns, the communication, the fashion. It’s given me many very different creative outlets, the stores, to create and to fulfil what I have, this void that I have inside of me of wanting to do something beautiful, you know? As for myself, I’m young. I definitely have that going for me. I’m still quite naive. I really do believe in trying to keep that inner child for as long as possible. It’s key. I don’t like people that are old in their mentality. I like youth.

No self-seriousness for Nude Project. 

Yeah. We’re not serious. I’m nobody. I don’t want myself to be taken too seriously. And I’m hopefully genuine. I just want to be a good person and I want to do things that make my parents proud and feel like they did a good job of raising me and be at peace with my decisions and deal with my silly problems in the best way possible. I think that would be like a description of what I am or what happiness would mean to me.

I mean, that does sound very genuine. How would you describe the energy at the headquarters of your brand?

Hopefully if I’m not fake, it has a lot of what I just told you about myself. I think the brand is a reflection of me, so I think when you go to the office, you just feel a similar energy. It’s a lot of energy, a lot of people trying to do something special. It’s very different because it’s very diverse as far as ambience goes or as far as people. But I think that’s what makes it perfect. We always talk and laugh about it… It’s so cool how all these random people unite in this project. If you put them all together in a class-type photo, you’d be like, yo, what the fuck do these people do? You wouldn’t understand a thing. But when you’re there, you live it, it all kind of makes sense. And that’s the beautiful part of it. So we’re people, we’re youthful, we’re energetic, we love what we do in general, and we’re very passionate to do something that has an impact in making the world more beautiful.

So would you say you’re more of a collaboration-prone person, or do you value individual work more?

I think both have their space and time, but collaboration is definitely my favourite. I was always the type of kid that would raise his hand in class the whole time just because I wanted to ask the teacher shit, even if she just got over me at one point. But I always liked engaging, collaborating, talking, discussing, challenging, so I like working with people. I’m a people’s person, I radiate other people’s energy, so definitely collaboration.

I think that energy transpires in the way you talk. Unrelatedly, what’s your favourite brand? 

I don’t have one, but if I had to say a mix, it would be a mix between Ralph Lauren, Playboy, and… honestly, maybe Loewe. 

And you were talking a lot about print and analogue, which I prefer; I also think the newspaper idea of your brand is super cute. I feel like people are still… I don’t want to say beating a dead horse, but I do feel like sometimes social media is oversaturated to a point where it all becomes unintelligible.

We need less and better. Hopefully people realise that, because I think the era of oversaturated socials is on this path to be over. It’s not fun anymore. This is something I always think, especially working mostly digitally, that there’s no more doing this. 

I wish I was in 2015, where Instagram was just like popping up, and I was there with my friends, and it felt like a club, but it’s not that anymore. But speaking of, what are your favourite analogue creations? Let’s start with publications, for example.

I love Playboy in the 70s. Apart from what they’re very known for, and all the covers, and the more degrading stuff that it eventually became, I think their editorial work in the 70s, and their view on politics, on culture, on lifestyle, on community, it was very unique and very fresh. And if I see it like this now, I can’t imagine how it felt for America in the 70s. I think it would have been a complete breath of fresh air to what was out there. So, I deeply admire it. It’s beautiful. I wish we went back to that.

Do you have a big inspiration as a person?

It may sound cliche, but I think definitely my parents are my biggest inspiration, because I’ve been lucky to have extremely loving parents that have shown me how important love is, how important it is to be loved and to love people. And also, they’ve always given me wings to do whatever I wanted to do and how I wanted to do it. So, they have to be my number one inspiration. But then, I’m deeply inspired by different people. It can be artists like Dali, which I think is an extreme character. To musicians like Mac Miller. I love Mac Miller because I always thought he was a sweet, sweet guy and a very sensitive person. Then, in terms of the business world, definitely like… Steve Jobs. Because even the way he is known, I think about what he did for the world.The impact he’s had on the world is undeniable. I’m entertained by it. 

Going back to your parents, did they also inspire you professionally?

Absolutely. They bought and sold art and it always made a very acute sense of love for design. My dad has an extreme sensibility towards beautiful things. I grew up with critics in my house. My dad always said it as a joke, but he claimed a deformation from his job that rendered him a critic with everything. Not only art, but with me, with how I did things. It raised me very sensitive to art and to my own admiration and being able to pay attention to detail.

I think it’s important to be critical when raising a kid, in the sense of forming a path for them. Not what they have to see, but how they have to see it. Moving forward, what is something you would tell a young creative in 2025?

I think definitely be more prone to failing and fucking up. I think we all need to fuck up more in general. Maybe it’s not the best word to be phrased, but I think we all need to try more shit and not be scared of what our circle of people around us are going to think so much. We all live with an eternal prejudice and anxiety of what people are going to think. How are they going to react? What are they going to say? I just think the more you’re able to express yourself, even what seems very intimate to you in an art form, the more liberated you get. I think definitely try more and fuck up more because you’re going to be eventually better.

I fully agree. What are your long-term hopes and dreams with your brand?

Honestly, it might not sound super sexy, but if I’m able to do what I’m doing already without limitations and with the same people that I love, I’m more than fulfilled. Meaning that I can create the stories I want to create, do the campaigns I want to do, design the clothes I love to wear. Honestly, as long as I can keep doing that, I’m designing the life I want, so I don’t really need much more. 

I think that sounds sexy enough. Is there anything you would have done differently in your career path looking back? 

It might be a cliché again, but I definitely have to say no. Everything I’ve done has led me up to the point that I’ve come through. So even if I did think, oh, this I didn’t fuck with or this I didn’t like, I would have still done it to be now in the place where I’m like, okay, I did it, I didn’t like it, I fucked up, and now I definitely know I’m not going to do it. Because if I hadn’t done it, I might have done it later in the future and it could be more… Dangerous.

No, that’s fair. I’m thinking, do you have any sort of icks about fashion or in the industry or about being a creative?

 I’m an extremely positive person, but if I have to have something that I don’t like, it’s maybe people that try to be cool. I think coolness definitely exists, but I think the coolest thing is to be genuine to what you are and feel free to express that. And when I see people trying to impose some sort of role or some sort of act just to appear cooler or more mysterious or more enigmatic, but it’s like an act, it’s kind of the most repellent thing there is to me. And it does exist in the fashion world. 

I hear you, yeah. It’s often not that hard to filter it. Sometimes it is so conspicuously acted. Coolness became a very cheap asset.

Yeah, I don’t really use the word cool in itself. I think I definitely want to be aspirational, I want to do something that people aspire towards, but I don’t want to be cool. Because it’s too broad of a term. I don’t even know what it means, really.

I think coolness also implies a sort of nonchalance within someone’s craft. I feel like when you’re a creator, you have to be… chalant. You have to care. 

There’s a lot of people that act like they don’t care about their creations. It seems like they just come out of nothing, or that they do it effortlessly. Anything that is very cool and that is amazing, trust me, the person that’s behind it, they do care. So even if it seems like they didn’t care, they did care. I don’t know why I feel obsessed with seeming as if you know what I’m saying. I read an article about it, I think ever since the Kanye West album, The Life of Pablo, which is in this iPhone-y, Helvetica font aesthetic everything went towards the most effortlessness. So yeah. I feel like that’s when the ship went down. Yeah.

What are some concluding words you would like to share? If there are any. Hopes, dreams, advice.

Anything. I don’t know, I think, I’m not one for advice, but I can definitely give a suggestion, which is keep being you, once again, no matter how cliché. Because it’s true! Keep doing things you like, and I think that will lead you closer to the path you need to find, closer to your purpose. I think we all have a purpose in this life, so I think the most beautiful thing is when you can fulfil it, and you can feel like every day you’re working towards it. So keep doing you, and eventually you’ll find out, I’m sure.