Like most successful businesses, the fashion brand NOMIA found its footing through intuition and chance. Yara Flinn, then 23, was fresh off a job at the Fondazione Prada, with hopes of pursuing an MFA. At the same time, an interest in clothing spurred her to take pattern-making classes at FIT, resulting in a few early pieces. Her friend Pamela Love—now a jewelry designer, then working at Barneys New York—offered to wear one of Flinn’s dresses to a staff meeting. “It’s such a crazy story,” Flinn says, “but they ended up buying a few styles from me.” A label was born. Ever since, NOMIA and Flinn have evolved together, finding moments of exhilaration and easeful restraint. For the past several years, the designer has opted for intimate showroom appointments in lieu of runway shows. “Honestly, I find them so stressful and depleting,” says Flinn. “I had to start paying attention to the way things made me feel.” In 2021, she and a friend collaborated on a pop-up shop in Brooklyn. A year later, NOMIA opened a place of its own, with a buildout by Flinn’s architect husband and a curated mix of vintage objects and like-minded brands. These days, family routines with their six-year-old son act as a grounding force. “It’s the opposite of looking forward,” she says. “I am always just trying to stay present.”
