Lindsey Malloon of Nadjarina

“What is modern femininity? What does it look like? How do we talk about it How do we empower ourselves? How do we do it in a way that empowers the community?”

These are questions that designer and founder Lindsey Malloon ponders and answers through her fashion brand, Nadjarina. Nadjarina is a true labor of love, a love for personal expression, a love of community, a love of the planet earth, and of Lindsey’s daughter–Mila–who the brand is named after. I had the pleasure of chatting with the Rhode Island native about our shared experiences with catholic school uniforms, what it means to be a self-defined woman, deep community healing, and design that is as much function as it is fashion.

Nadjarina is named after your daughter, Mila. One thing that becomes apparent when getting to know you is how important she is to you and how proud you are of being a mother. Has motherhood influenced your creativity? Has Mila been a big inspiration during or even directly involved in the design process?

”That's a good question. I mean, part of the dialogue of Nadjarina kind of stems from my experience as a mother. Part of it is kind of just my experience being a female in the workplace, and then part of it is also being a mother. And I think that as a woman, obviously, we have our hurdles as a mother. I'm a single mom. I have extra hurdles. Being an entrepreneur, like, going out, people are always like, ‘well, how are you going to be an entrepreneur? That's selfish. You’re a mom.’ It's just like, all these things. ‘Why aren't you sacrificing your career to be a mom?’ And when you're a mom, you're supposed to sacrifice. It's just like all these other things that people kind of like assign to us or when you become a wife, ‘when are you having kids? When are you having more kids?’ It's just kind of like all these things that people really assign to us as a woman that I just kind of was exhausted by. And I was like, no, I'm going to stay me and wear that role as a mother, which I think hold on.”

We’re Interrupted by Mila herself, who chose to stay home with her mom instead of attending day camp on this specific day.

“So going back to her participation, she comes for a lot of like photo shoots, creative stuff. I take her with me. It's a little bit harder now because we just moved to Miami a year ago, but I used to take her to downtown L.A. for fittings and fabric sourcing. She's very involved, and she sees a lot of it, which I think is important because you get to see a woman actually having a career, but then also, if there's this other thing that takes my attention and that isn't her, I think it's important for her to get involved in it. So she feels a sense of ownership around it a little bit. So, yeah, she's really creative. I could definitely see her taking on some roles in the future, but right now, she just kind of bops in and she's like, ‘sparkly pink sequins, mom! You need this!’ I'm like, that's not on brand!”

I know just being involved makes a difference for a kid. A lot of the time, just seeing and being a part of just being like just don't get in the way. Same type of thing, but incorporating them goes a long way. So it's great to hear that she's excited about being around and you're excited about having her and that you haven't given up any type of identity. Because I feel like a lot of times mothers have this thing where everything the motherhood overshadows who you were previously.

“That is really like a lot of the underpinnings of Nadjarina, though. First it's the piece where it's kind of like, all fashion designed by men for the most part. It's so historically rooted in us that even when we go get dressed up for a girl's night, a lot of times if we want to look like sexy, we're still defining that through a male gaze because it's historically been defined through that, which I find really interesting. It's something I've been really thinking about lately.

So in regards to our work, where what we're going to wear around the house, running errands, all those things, I think that's a big dialogue around Nadjarina. It's kind of like, ‘well, how do you know what really works for those instances?’ Like, ‘if I'm running from the office to go grab drinks with girls and then date night or a press event, and then I'm picking up the kids, and I'm taking them grocery shopping and all those things, like, how do you know what I need in my wardrobe for that?' Because you're not doing that.’ So that's like a big piece of Nadjarina, and it's kind of sitting down and saying, ‘well, no, I'm a woman.' I know what our needs are, and we're going to start redefining that.’ You see it a lot with our more relaxed fits, but then you have that kind of, like, played-up central cuts. So it's kind of like playing within all of those dynamics of owning all those identities, but still having the malleability to get through it all.”

That's such a great segue into our next question. One thing I love about Nadjarina’s brand voice is that it’s self-empowering. The brand often speaks about being your own muse, dedicating time to cater to one’s self, and even breaking the male gaze. How important was it to you to make the brand empowering and grounding for women?

“I think that really is really the backbone of it. I think that as women, we we have a very, like, silenced experience, and you can get into the nitty-gritty. And going back to the Me Too Movement as like a really strong example, like, all these women that had gone through this extremely traumatic and isolating experience in their lives, all of a sudden had a platform to talk about it. So I think that kind of, like, starting to highlight that, but then coming back and not coming from a place of anger. So I think, like, post Me Too Movement we were just like ‘okay, well, bad guys are in jail now and we're going to walk away from this.’

But it really kind of opened a can of worms, and then nobody really acknowledged that. So kind of like rebuilding a toolkit and learning how to be self-empowered but not be alien meeting. And it's not like men versus women. We're all communal. It's just more like, ‘here's how to be empowered and set boundaries in a more personalized way and still have an open dialogue.’ Really building out that toolkit to navigate that but also to visually empower women. In a simplistic way, when you wake up in the morning if you put something on that kind of embodies all of your ‘pieces’ we’re more likely to wear them throughout the day without losing accents of ourselves.”

I love both Nadjarina’s and your personal Instagram feed! When you model Nadjarina’s clothes, you truly embody and exude the “be your own muse” message, dedicating time to cater to oneself and opposing the male gaze. How does wearing your own designs make you feel? Did it take time to acquire the confidence that you exude?

“That’s a good question. I feel like it’s the chemistry with the photographer. Most of those photographs are with one of my really good friends–he’s like a brother to me–and he’ll come and be like “I have an idea let’s go shoot.” And we’ll go shoot because we have such a good chemistry, he draws some of that out.

A part of my journey in the past few years has been a lot of unlearning and relearning, finding validation from within instead of external, whether it’s relationships or the work that I do. Even as an entrepreneur, some of the original pieces were more based on feedback based on what buyers wanted and what other people needed. So a lot of things were getting lost in the beginning because there was so much about validating and responding to external factors instead of really going in and designing from my own point of view. And of course, there needs to be a balance, it needs to be sellable, and it has to be filling a merchandising perspective for buyers. Coming back, I think it’s hitting a point in my life where joy comes from here and nowhere else.”

When looking at your designs, website, and Instagram feed, I can see an edge to the brand. Almost like what a rockstar would look like through a female gaze. Is there an aesthetic you’re going for with your designs? What inspires your designs?

“The fit is definitely coming back to the function side. So you know, pieces that are going to flattering no matter what time of the month it is, functionality between workplace and scooping kids up, not being super restrictive. The aesthetic is different–the piece that are going to be coming out over the next few months are all inspired by silence. Kind of spinning off of the pandemic and us having all of this time alone in solitude. The visual representation of it–a lot of the mood board is an empty desert, places where you have absolute silence.

The collection that’s coming for wholesale for next year that’s ocean-inspired. You can see my move to Miami feeding into that. There’s a lot of ocean, coral, undersea–textures inspired by that. A lot of my inspiration comes from nature, history, and certain emotions.”

What does “conscious luxury” and eco-friendly craftsmanship mean to Nadjarina?

“Conscious luxury is a term that I came up with ages ago, probably around the time that I had my daughter. Nadjarina was kind of in the back of my brain, it was something that I was ideating around. I think that sustainability is kind of coming to the forefront right now–which is a really amazing thing! That was kind of my way of packaging like–sustainability and consumerism are complete opposites. If you’re consuming, you’re not really being sustainable. So how do you package that up and make it more realistic? So for me, fair trade labor was a big part of it. So I work with a studio in L.A. that pays their employees livable wages. It’s above minimum wage, there’s air conditioning, lunch breaks, they have holiday parties. It’s very family communal, it’s a vibrant atmosphere. So fair trade labor is a big part of it. Especially after my career, I’ve worked in everything from fast fashion to luxury fashion, and it was really disheartening to see.

[Conscious luxury means] going back to how Native Americans–and just all of our ancestors–approached the usage. You kill an animal, you eat the meat, you use the hide, you use the bones, you use every part of it. We try to use as much as we can. [And we use] real natural fabrics, silk, cottons, things that are circularly sustainable. It’s really just returning to the old traditions where it’s people that are passionate about their craft, and they’re properly approaching how they use things and how they’re finding them, and just a more symbiotic relationship with mother nature.”