‘I feel like I should be open’: Nadia Bartel is ready for her next step
The designer and mega influencer speaks about her personal plans, growing her family and why ‘no-one really knows what you’re going through’.
EXCLUSIVE: Nadia Bartel is stepping into her next era with a new sense of confidence – and she’s making some big moves.
As she poses on Stellar’s set at a private home in Bondi Beach, the Melbourne-based designer and influencer confesses, “I don’t care as much what people say about me, I feel like I should be open.”
Part of that openness is revealing her plans in business and also her personal life.
The past few months have been a whirlwind for Bartel in front of, and behind, the scenes – in particular, a trip to Paris to shoot a campaign for Henne, the fashion brand she founded in 2019 with her sister Michelle Ring and business partner Laura Broque.
“We were there for three nights, sleeping three to four hours a night,” Bartel says.
“Paris is an inspiration for me, that laid-back, effortless style, and their way of life. Parisians look so put-together and polished.”
Bartel, who turned 40 in May, leans into candour as much as ambition during her chat with Stellar. And she is ready to talk about taking the next step in her relationship with Melbourne-based businessman Peter Dugmore, which involves a pivotal personal decision.
“I want to try and have a family with Pete,” Bartel reveals for the first time.
“We want to really start trying this year.” To that end, she has already frozen embryos with Dugmore, an experience she says was “quite confronting. IVF can be intense, and no-one really knows what you’re going through,” she says.
“You still have to show up for work and be a mum.” (Bartel has sons Aston, who is 10 next week, and Henley, 7, with ex-husband and former AFL star Jimmy Bartel, from whom she split in 2019 after five years of marriage.)
“I probably mentally wasn’t ready a few years ago – for me, it was very different in my early 30s to even be thinking about this.”
It was during a cover shoot with Stellar in April 2023 that Bartel confirmed for the first time that she was in a relationship with Dugmore.
Asked how their romance has grown since then, Bartel says: “He’s my partner and we’ve got each other’s support.
“He’s such a big help with the boys; I feel like we’re a real team.”
While she and Dugmore are planning to try to conceive naturally, she adds it is “comforting to know we’ve got the embryos there as well”.
Bartel calls Aston and Henley her “little best friends. I love seeing how much they’ve grown and the changes in the past few years.
“They’ve got their own personalities.
“Henley is very artistic and creative. I love the way his little mind thinks. Aston is thoughtful and sensitive.
“They’ve got a real understanding with what I do with Henne – I’ve taken them to the new store during the build.” (The brand opened its second Melbourne store, in Armadale, earlier this month.)
“I’m getting more questions from them about what I do.”
HENNE’S NEXT CHAPTER
Nadia Bartel is preparing to close out what she refers to as a “massive year” for Henne.
After releasing the latest collection, dubbed “Entre Lieux” (French for “between places”), and unveiling the new store on High St, there are plans for a second Sydney location and one in Brisbane next year.
Then, perhaps, an international expansion. Such is the brand’s popularity – it’s been seen on trendsetters including model/actor Emily Ratajkowski, who was photographed in 2023 wearing a jeans-and-tank outfit which sold out instantly – there are still queues outside the shopfront in Sydney’s Paddington.
As Bartel reflects on its success and its retail growth, she adds: “The [new Melbourne] store is 200 square metres. We want it to be a very tailored, special experience.”
In September, Bartel – who rose to national prominence as a WAG alongside her close friend Rebecca Judd in the 2010s – attended her first footy match in years when she sat in the stands at the MCG to watch the AFL Grand Final with her sons.
Both are supporters of Geelong, the team their father once played for.
“They always go to the footy with my dad and brother – but I hadn’t been back since Aston was about one-and-a-half or two years old,” Bartel says.
“All the memories came back. It was a great day. They had been wanting for me to go for a while.”
‘IT SETS YOU FREE’
With more than half a million Instagram followers, Bartel is acutely aware of her influence and the scrutiny that comes with it.
“I feel like the trolling is quite out of control at the moment, and I’m not sure why that is and where it’s coming from,” she says.
“There’s never been a period where I haven’t been trolled. You can’t say you don’t get affected by it; when you read messages that can be quite negative and quite personal, and when they target your family, that’s where it’s quite hurtful.”
To that end, Bartel says she has done “a lot of work” on herself to deal with the criticism on social media. “I really, honestly know where to put it now,” she says.
“That’s a place it’s taken me a long time to get to. It’s probably only been the last few years that I’ve really got to this place where it doesn’t affect me. There were so many years where it would consume me.”
Now, Bartel says she is “in such a good mindset. When you’re younger, you probably don’t have an awareness to know why these people are targeting you.
“When you receive negativity like that, you can start doubting yourself: ‘Why are people saying this about me?’ When you realise it has nothing to do with you, it sets you free.”
See the exclusive shoot with Nadia Bartel inside Stellar, via The Sunday Telegraph (NSW), Sunday Herald Sun (Victoria), The Sunday Mail (Queensland) and Sunday Mail (SA).
For more from Stellar, click here.
Originally published as ‘I feel like I should be open’: Nadia Bartel is ready for her next step
