Small Business Spotlight: Mohamed Malim, Founder and Creative Director of Epimonía
Tuesday, June 1, 2021 at 4:46AMArticle by Becky Fillinger
Mohamed Malim
Meet Mohamed Malim, the 25 year old Founder and Creative Director of Epimonía – the Minneapolis fashion label that upcycles life jackets that were worn by refugees on the Mediterranean Sea and discarded upon arrival in Greece. We talked to him about his inspirations and changing the narrative about refugees.
Q: Please tell us about your journey to Minneapolis.
A: I was born in a Refugee Camp in Kenya in 1996 to parents fleeing the Somali Civil War. My family lived there until I was 3 years old when we were able to resettle in the U.S. and landed in Minneapolis, MN, where there's a large community of Somali refugees and Somali Americans. My parents obtained their U.S. citizenship a few years later through the typical process which granted me automatic U.S. citizenship.
Q: You debuted your company's fashion at New York Fashion Week on February 18, 2021. Congratulations! What was that like?
A: Our experience with New York Fashion Week 2021 was incredible! To date it's been the largest platform we've had to spread our message of the importance of supporting refugees. The entire NYFW and IMG teams were amazing and clearly wanted to see us succeed. Because the show was fully virtual, that also allowed us more creative freedom to showcase our mission along with our collection of products. The support that we got from our followers when they saw us at NYFW was amazing, and we were so happy to welcome all of our new followers that came from that exposure.
Q: Do you have fashion industry mentors?
A: My biggest fashion inspirations have always been Virgil Abloh and Teddy Santis. From Teddy Santis - how he embraced his background to create Aime Leon Dore. ALD products represent a whole community that catches people’s attention in a unique yet simple way. We also like how his label emphasizes materials and feel – we want our products to feel and look great too. Virgil Abloh is also a major inspiration in terms of bridging the gap in the design community. We hope to support refugees in many ways, and Virgil is always talking about empowering the community. We believe Epimonia can play a big role in empowering and developing refugee talent for future years. We are all about giving back to our community.
Q: You say that Epimonía is changing the narrative of refugee support. What does that mean to you?
A: Our Change the Narrative initiative is hugely important to our mission, and it's not something that we commonly see in the fashion world because it's not as profitable as focusing all of our energy into products or content. There's a widespread misconception about refugees that we attribute to misrepresentation in the media. Our Change the Narrative initiative is our effort to remedy that through sharing stories from refugees and refugee supporters themselves and correct the inaccuracies. Refugees are hardworking, they're resilient, they're compassionate, and most of all they're human beings. They don't choose to leave their countries, and they're not just looking for handouts. Through a combination of our blog, our podcast, and our social media, we are on a mission to change the common perception of refugees.
Q: Please tell us about your partnerships - I saw a line of Love Your Melon life jacket beanies with your orange label.
A: Yes! We've collaborated with Love Your Melon twice now, we love working with another local Minneapolis brand that is also doing their part to support those in need through fashion. Most of our other collaborations so far have been creating products with NGOs or nonprofits supporting refugees like Choose Love and Oromia to raise money for them through a targeted campaign.
We're working on a product collaboration with Minnesota United Football Club that we're really excited about, and we're also working on a couple of different products directly with refugee artists. One thing that we love about collaborating with bigger fashion brands that don't necessarily have a social mission as a part of their brand identity is that through those collaborations, we get to introduce a social aspect to an already well-founded fashion brand. Making refugee support a part of consumers' everyday lives is a goal of ours, so having collaborations with brands that don't already do that is a great way for us to get our mission out there.
Q: How may we order your t-shirts, sweatshirts, beanies and jewelry?
A: Our shop is currently 100% online at epimonia.com, but we have a couple of retailers that sell our products in Minneapolis. The Minneapolis Institute of Art had an incredible special exhibit in collaboration with Ai Weiwei that was dedicated to refugees, so our bracelets are for sale in their gift shop, and MartinPatrick3 is a high-end retailer in Minneapolis that also sells our bracelets.
Q: How may we follow your news?
A: Because we're an ecommerce brand, following us on social media and subscribing to our newsletter is the best way to stay up to date on our company. On our social media you'll find pictures of our products, fact posts about current events in the refugee world, behind the scenes content, collaborations, and more. Our newsletter subscribers get access to exclusive discounts and presales for new products. We also have a blog and a podcast that are both linked on our website where we share refugee news as well as stories of refugees and refugee supporters.
Blog: https://epimonia.com/blogs/news
Refugee stories: https://epimonia.com/blogs/refugee-stories
Podcast: https://epimonia.com/blogs/podcasts
Instagram: www.instagram.com/epimoniamn
Newsletter: www.epimonia.com at the bottom of any page on our site!
