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Striking Simmetry: An interview with Simone Newar
Josephine Ogle
December 9, 2023
Simone Newar embodies her own brand name, Simmetry, between running her own clothing business and being a junior studying business at the University of Michigan Ross Business School.
While much of the world was parked on our couches and beds for months on end during the quarantine days of Covid-19, Simone found a remedy to her inevitable boredom. In an abnormally productive bout of TikTok scrolling, she stumbled across a video explaining how to design one’s own sweatshirt–curiosity piquéd and she set out to produce her own.
A senior in high school at the time, Simone quickly developed her operation, as she launched an Instagram under the name Sweats by Sim. Soon after, she began to expand her advertising tactics onto TikTok, where Newar received even more positive feedback. She created a brand that united loungewear and couture, designing sweatshirts, sweatpants, shorts, sets, and tops. With the use of colorful fabrics and graphics, the clothing line is centered around comfortability, which made the pieces extremely appealing to consumers as they were homebound during the time of the brand’s release.
In June of 2021, Sweats by Sim became Shop Simmetry as we know it. Her webpage became polished, and her brand gained official recognition within the fashion world.
Towards the end of Covid-19’s height, Simone experienced a blow-up on TikTok on the company page. While many other clothing lines were experiencing a decrease in sales as customers readopted saving mentalities, Simone’s business thrived. Many viewers of the TikToks flocked to Simone’s website to buy her products. While fashionable comfort pieces had already become a staple in many wardrobes, Simone introduced new designs with an aim to promote the mental and emotional equilibrium of consumers through positive messaging in their graphics.
The end of Covid-19 and her new arrival on a college campus presented an additional opportunity for the company: in-person marketing. As Newar began promoting pop-up shops for fellow students to come and view her pieces in person, she described an overlap in her TikTok audience and the consumers arriving at the shops; her brand’s social media popularity was responsible for roughly 85% of the turnout. Shop Simmetry was promoted on campus through more than just pop-ups. Being surrounded by thousands of her target consumers, Simone utilized word-of-mouth advertising to engage with a much more extensive audience. Then, when she joined Greek Life in the second semester of her freshman year, she generated promo codes for sororities on campus and had friends promote the brand within their respective chapters.
Moving beyond her own college campus, Simone made use of hometown connections in Houston, Texas, and networked to get her brand on the University of Texas campus as well. By hosting pop-ups for a completely new audience, she consequently expanded her in-person marketing across state lines.
As for the future, Newar looks forward to hopefully engaging in more collaborations with other brands, having already worked with an art business in one of Simmetry’s three giveaways. She also discussed an upcoming drop of new collections in the 2024 semester featuring a mens line. She said that some of her pieces, specifically with the “TOMORROW IS NOW” graphics, have already resonated well with a male clientele. Adding a selection specific to this audience is the natural next step in the expansion of her brand.
Balancing her time is not exactly easy. Simone says that her largest challenge is time management; between being a full-time student to running a business to working in L’Orèal’s marketing department this summer, she certainly has a full plate. She is the sole manager of her company’s every move, besides the manufacturing of the clothing, which is done by a firm back in her home state. But, Simone continues to make it work. In the essence of her company’s mission towards equilibrium, she seems to find her balance between being a student and an entrepreneur.