Interview with Nandini Dhir

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Where did you start and how did you get to where you are now; selling your pieces and landing commissions?

 

I didn’t like high school very much. I was more of a hands-on learner, and I really needed to visualise things in order to understand them. My dad used to screen print as a teenager, he saw Bobbin and Ink on Parramatta Road and just suggested I reach out to them. I ended up doing work experience there for a week in year 10. The owner, Laura Walsh, is the primary reason I work in this industry. Without her direction and access to her facilities, I wouldn’t know how to sew or screen print at all. I eventually ended up working at Bobbin and Ink. I would stay back late to use the facilities and practice sewing and screenprinting. I spent years making mistakes, I spent days with nothing to show for all these hours of hard work, and then one day I slowly started to get things right. It just took a really fucking long time to pass that boundary. I also did a Certificate III in Applied Fashion Design and Technology at TAFE which is a really important course if you want to become a good seamstress and pattern maker.

 

How did you get into selling your work and putting your pieces out in Sydney?

 

I guess you could say I started when I was 14. I used to sell shitty chokers in high school for about two dollars. The first screen printed products I sold were some t-shirts. I remember selling them for about $20 which didn’t even cover the actual cost of the shirt, let alone my labour. I was just saying yes to everybody. Even though I was making no money off it, I felt great doing it! Then I started selling through Instagram just by myself. I undersold myself so much, and made no money – but it’s all practice, and you’re still learning. Sometimes, I still don’t make enough money for my labour, especially with screen printing; the money for my labour becomes non-existent.

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What would you say has been one of the biggest challenges as an emerging designer and also working as a freelancer?

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Standing your ground. I’ve had a lot of experiences with clients — people trying to take advantage of me — asking me to do something in half the amount of time, or pay half the amount of money. People will take you for a ride because you’re young and don’t have qualifications behind you.