User:Evangelo Bousis

Evangelo Bousis is the co-founder and image director of Dundas – the luxury fashion brand he started with his partner in life and business, Peter Dundas, the former Emilio Pucci and Roberto Cavalli creative director. The Chicago-born graduate of Parsons has carved a diverse and unconventional path on his way to launching and operating Dundas since 2017. With little in the way of real fashion business experience, Bousis has been able to maximise his keen intuition honed by growing up within a family of successful entrepreneurs, to propel Dundas to a seat at the big table of luxury fashion. Raising $5million in the process, Bousis scored the greatest coup when launching the brand by dressing none other than a pregnant Beyoncé at the 2017 Grammys. Since then, he has spearheaded a disruptive approach to the usual seasonal business model, opting for a see now, buy now strategy incorporating e-commerce channels and pop-up stores that has eschewed traditional advertising in favour of a social media approach, leveraging a network of high-profile friends such as Emily Ratajkowski and Kendall Jenner. An actor from the ripe age of three-years-old, Bousis was, in his own words, “an awkward kid,” often finding himself alienated from his peer group. His parents, the Greek Americans Dimitrious “Jimmy” Bousis and his wife Eleni founded a chain of hugely successful supermarkets across Chicago and the Midwest, and have since become known for their philanthropic work: Eleni is the founding chair of the Hippocratic Cancer Research Foundation (HCRF), which discovers, develops and implements effective new treatments for cancer patients by supporting ground-breaking research at Northwestern University. At 16, having just graduated from high school, Bousis was scouted to be a model and within two weeks of signing the contract was flown to Paris where he lived and worked for the next three years. Urged by his parents to enrol at college, he studied for two years at Parsons in Paris before moving to New York for the remaining two years of a fashion design management course, but studying always felt like an obligation. He returned to acting shortly after graduating, landing roles in a number of films. Living between Los Angeles and New York, Bousis met Peter Dundas in 2014 and moved to Florence where the latter was heading up Pucci at the time. Shortly afterwards, the pair moved to Milan, with Peter charged with the task of invigorating Cavalli. It was there that Bousis began to work-shadow his partner, gaining unique insight into the internal machinations of a renowned global fashion house. Having long thought about starting his own label, but reluctant to do so without a partner, Bousis was the catalyst for Dundas to take the leap in February 2017 by first dressing a heavily pregnant Beyoncé for the Grammys, then subsequently showing their first collection during Paris Couture, made available through online retailer Moda Operandi. Current working on their ninth collection, and based out of the former Island Records office in London, Bousis launched the Dundas online store this past July. In April 2019, Bousis was one of the headline speakers at the TEDxUIUC: Emerge event, in Illinois, where he discussed his unique perspective on the business of fashion.