We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Nadia Nimalan. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Nadia below.
Nadia, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today One of the toughest things about entrepreneurship is that there is almost always unexpected problems that come up – problems that you often can’t read about in advance, can’t prepare for, etc. Have you had such and experience and if so, can you tell us the story of one of those unexpected problems you’ve encountered?
When you attend a fashion show, there is so much excitement and enthusiasm for when the clothes finally hit the runway. What many people do not realize, is that a great deal of stress and uncertainty occurs before this beautiful moment takes place. Truly Debonaire debuted it’s first runway collection at New York Fashion Week in 2024 and although it was such an incredible experience there were a few bumps along the road to success. The DJ for the show was having issues uploading our song and background video, some of our models were not able to attend their hair and makeup appointments, instead they had to complete their own makeup 15 minutes prior to the runway walk, and we had to hire a substitute model because one model was unable to attend our show due to a prior commitment. All of these moments added up to a high stress environment for myself and our entire fashion team, but we decided to go with the flow, to work together on each obstacle as quickly and efficiently as we possibly could. Regardless of the hurdles we faced, the show turned out even better than we could have ever imagined! I am happy that I had the chance to work with numerous professional individuals in the fashion industry who are dedicated to getting the job done right and working well together as a team!
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
I am Nadia Nimalan; I am a Fashion Designer and Entrepreneur. I started my journey in the fashion industry as a costume fashion designer, creating costumes for movies and music videos. Although I enjoyed creating costumes, I really enjoyed creating jewelry, so I decided to dive into jewelry design and I created 2 costume jewerly lines entitled Nadia Marie. The first line consisted of a combination of costume earrings and necklaces. The second line was a range of costume chain belts for dresses and pants. My sister (The Founder of Truly Debonaire) was very impressed by my creativity in costume design and jewelry design so she decided to offer me a job to design with her full-time at her company Truly Debonaire. Her vision for the garments created by Truly Debonaire is to make people feel confident and empowered in the clothes they choose to dress in. Our mother always instilled in us the motto, “If you look good, you will feel good” and this is the message that Sarah wanted to share with our lovely clients. What sets our brand apart, is that we truly care about how our garments fit you and your comfort is what matters to us most.
Can you talk to us about manufacturing? How’d you figure it all out? We’d love to hear the story.
Truly Debonaire’s garments are proudly curated and manufactured in Ontario, Canada. When we first started this business, we had no clue what it took to manufacture a whole clothing line, so we broke the process down into minor steps that lead us to our final product. Sarah our Founder, and I spent countless days in the fashion district in Downtown Toronto, Ontario meeting with numerous manufacturers trying to find the right one that would bring our garments to life. After four long months of meeting with potential manufacturing companies, we finally zoned in on 1 company that was able to develop our garments with the quality and care we hoped to share with our clients. The lesson I learned from this experience is that you should not give up when you do not know the answer to your problem. Do your research, talk to experts in your industry, and keep trying until you are able to find the solution you need!
Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?
In my opinion, the most effective strategy for growing your clientele, is to listen to your audience. What do they want and how can your product or service help them to acheive something in their daily lives? When you are offering a product or a service it is so important to remember that you are serving someone other than yourself, and every person has their own preferences. When you are able to effectively meet your customers needs, it leads to a happy customer which instantly results in revenue.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://trulydebonaireltd.com/
- Instagram: @nadiasfashionarchive
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nadia-nimalan
Image Credits
@nadiasfashionarchive