For many Americans, it’s unimaginable to think of life in growing up a war-torn country. For Mohamed Malim, this was his reality. Malim was born in Kenya at the largest refugee complex in the world after his family was taken out of Somalia. For his earliest years, he experienced life with limited access to clean running water, food, and basic medications.

As fate would have it, his family was drawn in the lottery system by UNCHR and relocated to the United States in Houston, Texas, where they were then sponsored by the Lutheran Church which brought the family to their permanent home in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Life in America wasn’t always easy – learning a new language and cultural assimilation proved challenging, but Malim is using his remarkable story and taking advantage of his extraordinary circumstance to help others less fortunate. With his label Epimonía, the entrepreneur is using fashion to shape the view of refugees and provide support. Learn more about the rising designer below.

Tell us about yourself.  

My name is Mohamed Malim, I’m 24 years old, and I’m a Somali-American young designer living in South Minneapolis, MN. I was born In a refugee camp in Kenya as the oldest of six siblings, where I lived with my family until I was four years old. I graduated from the University of St. Thomas with a degree in Business and Marketing in 2018, where I founded Epimonía in my senior year.

What inspired you to start this brand? 

As a former refugee, I want to change the narrative of refugee support in America. Despite the obvious hardships, my family and I received amazing support from our community when we moved to the United States, and I’ve wanted to find a way to ensure that all refugees be met with that same support ever since. I needed to figure out how to connect the refugee crisis to the world, especially the people who want to support but don’t know how. So I had the idea to use refugee life jackets in fashion as a way to put refugee support into consumers’ hands, and each of our products has a partnership with a different organization to support refugee resettlement, citizenship, education, etc.

What is your design philosophy? 

We use unique material with a story behind it to create minimal lifestyle products that start a conversation, bring awareness, and change the narrative. Similar to how the life jackets provided a lifeline to refugees during the journey to a new life, our brand uses the same life jackets to continue to support refugees on their next steps. We want our pieces to speak for themselves.

Where do you get your inspiration from?

We get a great deal of inspiration from Teddy Santis and 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.

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.

How can the fashion industry improve for the better?

We believe there’s going to be a shift in the fashion industry soon. There is a ton of useful recyclable material out there that can be used to create unique products. We are happy to see more brands move towards sustainable design, but we have to do more and expect more as consumers. Brands should try to build and support their communities through not only sustainable design but social impact.

What are your hopes for 2021? 

Hopefully, we can continue growing while giving back. We already have a couple of partnerships and new products coming out soon that we are very excited about. Our goal is to create a global community and continue to support refugees around the world. Our very first partnership of 2021 was incredibly successful – we set out to raise $10,000 for Syrian refugees in Lebanon in partnership with Muslims of the World, and we ended up raising almost $50,000 in just a few days.