Nona Source Woos London Designers, Brands Ahead of Five-year Anniversary in June
LONDON — Nona Source is taking its luxury deadstock fabric and leather on the road, opening a pop-up showroom to engage with its already-large client base here, and tell its circularity story to new and emerging U.K. designers and brands.
Owned by LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, Nona Source sells surplus fabric and leather from the group’s brands, and other luxury fashion houses. It is teaming with The Materialist deadstock fashion marketplace on the London event, which runs until Thursday. More than 100 designers and brands have been booked to visit.
The U.K. is Nona Source’s largest market outside France. It supplies fabrics to a host of designers and brands including Stella McCartney, Wales Bonner, JW Anderson and Bianca Saunders.
The London event is taking place as Nona Source prepares to celebrate its fifth anniversary in business. In June, the company will mark the occasion with new branding and a re-platformed website.
“With the website, we want to give our customers a sense of excellence, with upgraded services to match the quality of our fabrics and leathers,” said Anne Prieur du Perray, cofounder and chief executive officer of Nona Source, during an interview at The Mills Fabrica, where Nona Source opened its original London showroom before moving to Paris.
The Nona Source fabrics showroom in Paris.
During the London event, she plans to highlight the community that Nona Source has built over the past five years.
“Our community is made up of people who are at ease with using deadstock, and who see it as a source of creativity. We believe circularity enhances creativity, and that we are fostering innovation,” she said.
She added that building a community is important “because working with deadstock has been, and still is, a challenge. But once you adopt it, it starts to feel natural, and then you become a circular ambassador.”
Prieur du Perray said she wants Nona Source to be “more present on the London stage.” She’s partnering with Central Saint Martins, and also plans to return in the fall with a Nona Source event targeted specifically at fashion students. She also wants to host more London pop-up showrooms.
The Nona Source x Guerlain lipstick cases made from deadstock denim.
Since its launch in 2021, Nona Source has expanded rapidly, selling deadstock from the LVMH fashion and leather goods maisons and from houses outside the group, including Lanvin, Chloé and Balmain.
Nona Source now has 5,000 fabrics and leathers in stock, and can send samples to its more than 2,000 customers worldwide. It will expand into ribbons and fabric trimmings later this year.
Around 50 percent of the business comes from France, with clients ranging from big-name brands to emerging talent, to winners of the ANDAM and LVMH prizes.
Prieur du Perray said the fabrics aren’t just for clothing, and are increasingly being used for home interiors, packaging and visual merchandising.
Maison Francis Kurkdjian and Guerlain have used deadstock leather for fragrance and lipstick cases, respectively. At Cravan, a cocktail bar run by Moët Hennessy, the staff uniforms — and the fabric on the chairs — all come from Nona Source, she said.
The company is also finding solutions for deadstock yarn, working with one of its Paris neighbors, Benjamin Benmoyal, to transform it into fabric, which is now sold on the platform.
Nona Source x Francis Kurkdjian fragrance bottles using deadstock leather.
The French giant is working with WeTurn, which collects production scraps from various fashion houses, shreds it, adds virgin fibers and creates new yarns for denim and other fabrics. Another partner is Fairly Made, which offers supply chain traceability for brands.
In a further bid to service its customers, Nona Source has also kept a lid on prices, which have not changed since 2022. Its deadstock fabrics cost around 70 to 80 percent less than if they were purchased new. Students, she said, get them for even less.
Looking ahead, Prieur du Perray said Nona Source is working even harder on customer service.
It quality-checks the deadstock; traces the origin of the yarns in the textiles, and offers details on the environmental impact of each purchase. Nona Source is also looking to partner with like-minded companies “because the fashion circularity business is still small, so we want to find synergies, and do great things,” she said.
