About the designer

Doug Barry is a renaissance man, involved in fashion design, songwriting, live music performance, audio engineering, fashion photography, visual art, mechanical engineering and computer technology. His great-great-grandfather had a tailor shop in Germany which he later moved to Chicago in the late 1800's. The brick building in uptown Chicago still exists today. Doug possesses items and material from his shop. The following generations passed down this appreciation of hand made, high quality clothing. During grade school, Doug began going to the fabric store with his mother to pick out the material for the clothing that would be custom made for him to wear. Later this led into drawing sketches of what he wanted the clothes to look like. By high school Doug was sketching clothing of various types and following the fashion trends from the runway photos in the back of his sister's magazines. This began a series of experimental, geometric based designs of women's swimwear.

Doug's father lived many years in Corpus Christi, TX not far from the beach. Visits to Padre Island and the various shops there influenced the clothing Doug wore daily. This later was an influence with the design sketches. Another influence involved Doug's mother creating her own custom swimsuits for herself to wear. One of which still exists. These influences surfaced many years later when Doug moved to Nashville, TN and became involved in the local fashion scene as a photographer. The vision to connect Nashville style with Miami glamour was born in the mist of the many runway shows and after-parties Doug attended as a fashion photographer. The retro 60's vibe came from Doug's love of the vintage James Bond movies. When trying to recreate those looks in the studio, he discovered neither the swimwear survived from that era, nor were there modern recreations of them. Nashbeach was then born.