Nadia Bartel has spent most of her adult life proving that if you want something badly enough, and work tirelessly enough, you get it.
The proof is Henne, the label she started seven years ago with her sister and a friend, run out of a room above a Greville Street shopfront in Melbourne that will soon grow into a five-boutique business — its first Perth store opening on September 19. Female-founded with no external stakeholders, Henne is now one of Australia’s most popular, and viral, fashion brands.
So it was only natural that Bartel applied that same laser focus to something else she desperately wants, but for the first time, it’s something that no amount of hard work will guarantee.
In May, Bartel underwent two egg collections (the retrieval process of an IVF cycle) back-to-back, then went straight from the second one into the busiest week of her working year.
By her brother’s 40th she was struggling to breathe, her stomach cruelly appearing six months pregnant.
She ended up in hospital, diagnosed with ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome, a painful complication that can occur when fertility medication overstimulates the ovaries.
It came after a few years of undergoing IVF with partner Peter Dugmore, and a heartbreaking miscarriage at seven weeks after falling pregnant naturally in 2025.
While these side-effects of infertility have been challenging for Bartel, and the daily needles and constant poking and prodding are anything but easy, she explains there is another side to the process that is more debilitating.
“It’s the emotional side of IVF that affects you so much more than the physical,” Bartel tells STM.
“It’s not all the needles — yes, that’s part of it, and it’s not great — but it’s just something you can’t control. I look at everything I’ve done in business, you can control that, or you can work harder and you’ll get a result. But with IVF and infertility, there’s so much you can’t control.
“And my partner, I’ve already got my two boys (Aston and Henley) and he’s a great stepdad to them, but he doesn’t have any of his own children. For me, I’m 41, so it’s that feeling of: is it going to happen for us? It’s really difficult.”
At first she did it all privately, telling only the people closest to her.
Balancing public and private is something Bartel has had to consider since her mid-twenties, first as the wife of Geelong premiership player Jimmy Bartel, then as a fashion identity in her own right before becoming the name most people attach to Henne.
Something changed, though, when she hit her late thirties. Instead of feeling like she always had to put on a front, Bartel came to the realisation that people will either love or hate her no matter what she’s doing. So slowly, she began sharing more moments in her days to her over 500k social-media following: her business, holidays, social life, her boys, and the enviable wardrobe.
Around the time of her pregnancy loss, Bartel took a video of her reaction on the off chance she might feel strong enough to share it. For months, the pain was too great, and every time she opened the video she was too emotional.
Then almost a year on, there was a growing strength in her that wanted to share the news, a voice that said her experience could help other women — as many vulnerable videos had done for her in the past.
“I’m strong enough to share this,” Bartel remembers thinking. “By sharing this, it will actually help more people online. When you’re going through a miscarriage or infertility, you feel like you’re the only one going through it.
“And I had felt that myself . . . but the more people that I shared with what happened to me, it was like ‘oh my gosh, so many of my friends had gone through a miscarriage and no one spoke about it’.
“So many people have gone through IVF and don’t speak about it. So the one thing I can actually do to help is break that stigma and talk about it more.”
The comments on her posts are filled with women telling their own stories, sharing well-wishes and words of encouragement.
For now, Bartel is taking a break from IVF before another transfer, giving her body a bit of time to recover, and also to focus on the next few months of Henne — Perth, then Adelaide.
“I visited Perth about a year ago, looking at all the different locations, and when I visited Claremont I found such a strong connection to the area,” she says. “I thought it was so beautiful, and I loved the street nature of it because it reminded me of our stores in Melbourne, particularly our first store on Greville Street. It just felt very warm and welcoming, and very special to us.”
Her sons will be joining her on the trip, and Rottnest is on their itinerary of course. She says they’re old enough now to understand what their mum does for work, having watched the brand go from packing orders at home to opening stores they can explore across Australia.
What they’ll walk into in Claremont is a shopping experience that isn’t designed to move you through quickly. It’s slow and considered, focused on styling the pieces and working on how they’ll fit into the wardrobe you already own.
The brand began online in 2019 with pieces Bartel and her co-founders, her sister Michelle Ring and friend Laura Broque, wanted to wear themselves. This same sentiment remains, only now the items they love, particularly the denim, have a cult following.
Growing online before opening their first bricks-and-mortar store in 2022, as well as presenting at Australian Fashion Week the same year, allowed them to get to know the customer properly, says Ring, who handles marketing and creative direction. Broque, who runs product development and operations, adds that social media has been an asset too. A sneak peek of a piece that lands well is a fair indicator on how it will sell, as is watching the response to whatever Bartel is wearing.
They work on drops eight months in advance, and have developed a process that allows them to move quickly on demand once it hits stores and online.
Their Perth customers have a bit of edge to them, Ring says, with a light and coastal energy that they’ll be keeping in mind for the new store.
In the lead-up to the busy weeks ahead, Bartel has been trying to sit with how far they’ve come. The morning she spoke to STM she had looked around at Henne’s head office team, which had tripled in the past eight months.
She says it’s easy to disregard how far they’ve come when you’re always thinking about the next thing.
“Sometimes you need to take a moment to pause, and be grateful for what you’ve already achieved,” she says. “I think in business, and as women — we’re also like that in our everyday life. But if you were to look back at yourself as an 18-year-old, you would be looking at it like ‘this is incredible’ but us now, we’re thinking ‘I need to do this, move onto that’.
“I think now that I’m in my 40s, I have really tried to kind of take a pause more with those kinds of moments.
“It’s (Henne) something that we desired years ago . . . a customer in the change room feeling really confident when she’s trying these jeans on — I think those are the moments that are really incredible.”