How Jasper Mutimer Took His Brand to the Top of Australia’s Streetwear Scene

Jasper Mutimer has a confession: he hates creating videos, and it doesn’t come naturally to him.

This might come as somewhat of a surprise, as the 24-year-old’s brand, Mutimer, has experienced a stratospheric rise over the last four years by using social media, primarily TikTok, to establish itself as a heavyweight in the Australian streetwear scene.

After graduating in 2021 with degrees in finance and marketing, Jasper felt lukewarm about pursuing a career in the financial sector. Having started Mutimer while at university, he decided to go all in with the brand to see what he could make of it.

Part of this was launching the brand’s TikTok account, which ended up being pivotal for Mutimer and put it on the path to becoming one of the hottest brands in Australian fashion. These days, the brand has over 230,000 followers across social media platforms, has surpassed 2 million likes on TikTok, and boasts millions more views.

Successfully building Mutimer’s hyper-engaged TikTok audience has been partly due to Jasper fronting many of the videos, where he often showcases new products, discusses his design process, or styles pieces from an upcoming collection. Indeed, his face is as synonymous with the brand as his most viral pieces. But as he tells Complex Australia, he doesn’t enjoy creating videos.

“I really hate [creating videos], and it’s a tough thing to start, especially because on TikTok, you have to put your face out there for the videos to really do anything,” says Jasper.

“So that really sucked, and in the beginning, I got ribbing from my mates and whatever. It’s just a vulnerable thing: setting up the camera and posting your face. I still hate doing the videos.

“If you’re an individual creator, TikTok’s really good, and it’s a bit easier to make stuff feel natural. But as a brand, it’s hard to make natural and flowy content that doesn’t feel like you’re in a sales pitch the whole time.”

Despite disliking the video side of things, Jasper sure is good at it. Whether it was earlier pieces like the lace-patterned button-up shirt and rug-fleece vest, or more recent works like the red mohair sweater and the Jazz Club t-shirt, the brand excels in consistently producing statement pieces that go viral.

While Jasper never envisioned that his brand would take off the way it has, he recognised early on that social media would be critical in its development. “When I was starting out, I had no money for running Instagram ads or anything, and the idea of spending $500 and getting no followers or nothing from it was scary.

“So I remember I used to sit on Instagram for like two to three hours a day. I’d find other small brands—let’s say they had 25,000 followers—and I’d go through people who followed them, and if their account was public, I’d go and like their posts and comment on them. I remember Instagram used to ban me for like an hour a day because I was commenting on so much stuff.

“That’s what I used to do to try and get followers. I’d get 15 followers a day from it, and I thought that was so sick that people were following at the start.”

Doubling down on his efforts to grow the page, in 2022, Jasper began making TikToks every day of the working week. Slowly but surely, Mutimer grew. But it wasn’t until the release of the Cream Lace Shirt that the brand experienced its first true viral moment.

Ironically, the piece was one the designer wasn’t entirely sold on. “The success of that shirt was really wild, especially because I wasn’t sure about that piece when I made it,” Jasper says.

“So I made 80 of them with the supplier being like, ‘Oh, if they don’t sell much, then it doesn’t matter, I’m not losing that much money,’ and so having it blow up was nuts.

“The resulting money from the sales really allowed me to push the brand forward. In the past, I’d release a collection, get the money from that collection, and fund the next collection. I was working very collection to collection, [but] the sales from that piece allowed me to pay for three collections in advance.”

Mutimer drops, which occur seven to eight times a year, have quickly become events for the brand’s fans, who’ve come to expect collections that are conceptually thorough, accompanied by cinematic campaigns, and feature exceptionally high-quality garments. The brand’s customers, 30% of whom are based in the U.S., are always looking to see what the young designer can come up with next.

When it comes to designing collections, Jasper’s approach isn’t singular—it’s a process that can take various forms.

Sometimes, he chooses a theme and works outwards from there—take this year’s Jazz Club collection, inspired by a Tokyo Jazz bar he visited with his girlfriend in 2022. Other times, the inspiration for a collection can stem from pieces of art the designer is working on, as was the case with July’s MUDBOY collection.

The garments in the collection were inspired by the video concept that ended up becoming the MUDBOY campaign video. In Jasper’s words, “The video idea came first.” Pieces from the MUDBOY collection mirrored what Jasper envisioned the video’s protagonist—an army veteran turned mechanic—would wear.

Occasionally, it’s a single piece that spawns an entire collection.

“[Other times] I come up with a piece, what’s an example? I’d say the Chair T-shirt is a good example. That was a standalone design, and then I was like, ‘What kind of collection would that fit into?’ All the chairs on the shirt were Mid Century chairs, so it became a Mid Century collection.”

In 2023, the release of Mutimer’s Chair T-shirt marked another key point in the brand’s story. The piece’s virality surpassed that of its predecessor, the Cream Lace Shirt, and it remains the brand’s most widely recognised piece. Since its initial release, some of TikTok’s most fashionable influencers have featured it in outfits, including Im5ft, C1audiaswrld, Ipeakedinsecondgrade, and Jacobjrdnn. Not to mention, the rounds of re-releases continue to sell out.

The shirt’s popularity could stem from its authenticity. Its distinct graphic cut through on TikTok, and was inspired by a passion Jasper has held nearly as long as his love for fashion.

“I’ve always been… it sounds weird… but a big chair person,” he says.

“My girlfriend, when we first started going out, the first gift she got me was a book called ‘Chair Anatomy’ or something.

“She told me later that when she told her friends what she got me, they were like, ‘Oh, bit weird, but whatever.’

“I think the interest naturally stems from being interested in architecture and therefore interior design. I didn’t think [the shirt] would be as popular as it has been, but I thought the design was cool, and I guess I never really know how well something’s going to do, so I just put it out there, and people enjoyed it.”

Jasper’s love for chairs led him to design his own chair with the help of designer Tykeim Rashid. He’s featured the chair on his social media numerous times, but it’s not yet for sale to the public.

However, architecture and interior design are more than just interests for Jasper; architecture was his first career dream.

“I wanted to do architecture all throughout high school. That was my thing. I was going to be an architect, blah, blah, blah. Then just before I finished school, I talked to a few people who were architects and read between the lines—it turned me off.

“[For me], wanting to study architecture was about being creative, and then you kind of find out that for the first 15 years of your career, you don’t get to do any of the designing. You’re doing all the lackey work for other people.

“So I was kind of looking at it being like, oh, I’d have to study until I’m 25, graduate with heaps of debt, and then only when I’m 40 will I actually be designing shit.”

While his dreams of architecture may not have been realised as he’d originally envisioned, they’ll still play a vital role in the brand’s future; Jasper eventually plans to open a brick-and-mortar store.

“I have a whiteboard in the office with long-term goals. I’d say if we’re talking the next five to ten years, I want some retail stores,” he says.

“Not even as a [making money] thing, because I was doing the math and running a retail store doesn’t look very profitable at all.

“But I’d say it’d be more of a touchpoint for customers—you can go to a Mutimer store and say, ‘Yep, this is exactly what I envisioned.’ People go to the Aimé Leon Dore store in London or New York just to take a photo because it’s sick in there.

“So that was a long-winded way of saying that eventually, I’d like some retail stores—one in Melbourne and then some in other countries.”

With the success of multiple viral pieces behind him, one wonders if Jasper has a favourite piece.

The answer comes swiftly and easily—“It’s always the next one.”