DAM: We’re happy to sit down here today with Julie – owner and designer of her brand ‘Narm’. So Julie, tell us – what does ‘NARM’ mean?
JN: Narm is my last name in Korean, meaning ‘south’.
DAM: And how did your journey into fashion designing begin? What was your inspiration?
JN: I wanted to start my own label ever since I started studying fashion. I always had something in me that wanted to do fashion, since high school. I love textiles and my teachers really helped me fall in love with it. I was one of those kids who were like, ‘my dream is to become a fashion designer’ and that dream came true.
“I was one of those kids who were like, ‘my dream is to become a fashion designer’ and that dream came true.”
I graduated in Branded Fashion at Billy Blue College, which really helped me open up my own business. I guess the timing wasn’t right, so I went to London for a year and a half and I became a fashion designer there. I was designing for companies such as ASOS, BOOHOO, Misguided. I built my career there and came back. During that time, there was COVID and I lost my job twice, which really pushed me to start my own brand and here we are.
DAM: Was it much harder than you thought it would be?
JN: It’s so much harder. It seems like it’s this dream where you’re running around the streets of New York and you have all these fabrics and your designing day in and day out, but the fashion industry is very dark in itself.
“It seems like it’s this dream where you’re running around the streets of New York and you have all these fabrics and your designing day in and day out, but the fashion industry is very dark in itself.”
It’s very competitive and it’s a lot of ‘fast fashion’, so producing a lot of landfill that just goes to waste. At the start, I was doing that as well but now I just want to do my own thing. As an independent designer, it’s pretty hard when you’re starting out. I was about to drop out, I remember things going wrong with the manufacturer, like they would design a completely different style and use different fabrics by themselves. You also lose A LOT of money.
DAM: What are your style inspirations?
JN: I really like texture, hence I have a signature pleating that’s textured. It’s not normal pleating because it’s folded backwards and it gives it a nice style. I also like tactile stuff, so just the feeling of things and even architecture inspires me.
DAM: Do you have any inspirational fashion figures?
JN: A designer called Dion Lee, who is Australian. He does a lot of textures and cut outs, like laser cutting on some really cool fabrics – his work is simple but different. He’s my biggest inspiration and I aspire to be like him, but at the same time I have to have my own twist.
DAM: What does NARM promote?
JN: NARM promotes ‘slow fashion’ meaning it promotes fashion that goes against ‘fast fashion’ – the fast pace of producing clothing and landfill.
DAM: That’s really cool, was there a moment you knew you wanted to be an advocate for slow fashion?
JN: Working in the industry, everything is fast fashion and trend driven, so every time there’s a new trend there are new designs. Everything goes in and out and it’s so fast and there’s so much left-over clothing, even in our company when I was working in London, literally bags full and we’d chuck them out and we would just try to pick them up. That was when I realised how much waste there was.
“Everything goes in and out and it’s so fast and there’s so much left-over clothing, even in our company when I was working in London, literally bags full and we’d chuck them out and we would just try to pick them up. That was when I realised how much waste there was.”
DAM: What would be your biggest goal for NARM?
JN: Expanding globally is the goal at the moment and start other lines like menswear, swimwear and activewear. There’s a lot of men around me who ask ‘When are you going to start menswear’ and I’m always like ‘Ahh soon.’
DAM: Any final words of advice for aspiring designers?
JN: Go for it, you’d rather do it and regret it than not do it and regret it. At the end of the day, I think about why I started this and I strive for that. It’s all about the mindset, if you have the right people around you and surround yourself with the right energy, then you’ll go a long way.
“It’s all about the mindset, if you have the right people around you and surround yourself with the right energy, then you’ll go a long way.”
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Check out Julie’s designs and support her work here:
Website: https://narm.com.au/
IG: https://www.instagram.com/narmdesign/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/narmbrand
~ Published by Sangeetha & Marshall
~ Sub Edited by Farzeen Imtiaz
Diversity Australia Magazine 