“London shaped my views on fashion,” says Nanushka co-founder and creative director Sandra Sandor. She founded the brand 20 years ago after graduating from London College of Fashion, and describes the brand’s five-year-old Mayfair flagship as its most important retail location. Despite that, Nanushka had never shown at London Fashion Week (LFW).
Until now: Spring/Summer 2026 marks its debut. “Strategically, it has been part of our plans to show in London for a long time. We’ve been considering this for a while, and we felt like this might be the right moment, with all the changes at the British Fashion Council and London Fashion Week,” says Nanushka co-founder CEO Péter Baldaszti. Baldaszti, who is married to Sandor, also set up the brand’s holding group, Vanguards Group, in 2020, which now also owns Budapest-based knitwear label Aeron and Milan-based contemporary brand Sunnei.
Nanushka takes a considered approach to fashion shows, skipping certain seasons. Most recently, it showed in New York for SS25, tied to its 20th anniversary, and has previously shown in Paris. “A show is only 10 to 15 minutes of what Nanushka is about, so the single most important thing is to translate the brand DNA to this exact audience at the right moment, at the right scale and in the right place,” says Baldaszti. Founded in 2005 in Budapest, Nanushka is known for its minimalist designs, structured outwear, fluid dresses and relaxed tailoring. It launched menswear in 2019, handbags in 2021, and collaborated with Zara in 2024 with a collection of fashion pieces and homeware.
While there is a commercial consideration behind putting on a fashion show, Baldaszti says the brand hasn’t seen any correlation between sales performance and whether or not the brand participates in fashion week. “Trade wise, it’s not a clearly measurable correlation, but we think the show will help our UK and European customers understand where Nanushka is in its growth and evolution,” says Baldaszti.
At a time when luxury’s value perception is increasingly under scrutiny, Nanushka is hoping to cash in. While Nanushka could be considered an accessible luxury or contemporary luxury brand, Baldaszti prefers the term “rational luxury”. Nanushka’s prices range from £30 for a faux leather scrunchie and £90 for a cropped T-shirt to $695 for a boxy blazer and £1,495 for a shearling coat. “There’s an opportunity in this because we have all seen the huge gap between the value of a luxury product and the actual selling price. The gap is not very rational anymore,” says Baldaszti. “In a profitable business, huge marginality might be good, but people are sobering up in the luxury space. I think brands who are similarly positioned to Nanushka have an opportunity to grasp the consumer’s attention.”
Elevating the retail experience
The UK makes up between 15 and 20 per cent of Nanushka’s business. The US makes up around 40 per cent, while the remainder of sales are primarily from France, China and the Middle East. The London store sees a lot of tourist traffic, particularly Middle Eastern visitors. “We see a lot of tourists and expats or temporary residents. It’s not that the brand’s aesthetic isn’t a fit for the local customer, I think it’s probably [that they’re impacted by] the cost of living crisis in the UK,” says Baldaszti. “But we know that’s not a permanent situation and things will improve over time.”
Nanushka plans to refresh its London store by introducing a community space, timed to Frieze art fair in October. The brand has also been developing its VIP space, The Apartment, which is on the top floor of its flagship and will open next quarter.
The community-driven approach has been part of Nanushka’s retail strategy for some time: the brand has operated a café at its Budapest flagship since 2018. “We want the customer experience to be similar to hospitality. Both businesses are about how you make people feel good about themselves and about coming into our space,” says Baldaszti. As luxury brand cafés become increasingly common, Nanushka is thinking about other avenues to differentiate, and will be introducing some store updates in October to stay ahead of the curve.
There’s ongoing investment in elevating the wholesale experience, too. Wholesale makes up around half of sales, with stockists including Net-a-Porter, Ssense and Harvey Nichols. “One of the most important strategic pillars for us is to merge the retail and wholesale experience. We’re working with some partners to make sure the wholesale experience is more similar to what people can get in our London store,” says Baldaszti, naming Galeries Lafayette’s locations in Paris and Doha as the prime targets
The path forward
Nanushka has been improving its operational and financial foundations, which Baldaszti says helps the brand weather any external storms. “The entire fashion landscape has changed dramatically, and it’s now not just about top-line growth, but also profitability and how you keep a business financially sustainable and create solid foundations. Over the last couple of years, we’ve been through a roller coaster — supply chain issues, Covid — but the good thing is we’ve already done a lot of the work on streamlining things and making the company more resilient,” says Baldaszti.
Nanushka has had to grapple with the growing pains that come with rapid expansion. Sales are projected to reach just under €20 million in 2025, and the company expects to break even toward the end of this year after two years making losses. In 2026, the company forecasts growth of between 10 to 15 per cent and an EBITDA margin of 10 per cent.
“We grew fast, and that came with challenges, from bloated organisation to internal complexities. It’s not about downsizing, but right sizing, which ensures the size of the organisation’s complexity is reflective of the brand’s size and is feasible while keeping the business profitable,” says Baldaszti. “It’s a tough exercise and you have to make some difficult calls — it’s tougher than scaling a brand or staying on an upward trajectory, even.” Nanushka has been “ruthless” about cutting unprofitable channels.
For the design team, this means creativity within a logical framework. “I don’t consider myself fully an artist, I see myself also a businesswoman,” says Sandor. Her mother ran a childrenswear brand, so growing up, Sandor was always surrounded by clothes. “I love the act of selling, I love working with the merchandising teams. From my first collection, I’ve integrated functionality and practicality as a core value, so that’s always at the forefront of the design.”
What does Nanushka look like 20 years from now? “People usually overestimate how much can be done in a year or two, and underestimate how much can be done in 20 years,” says Baldaszti. “We certainly see Nanushka as a family business. There are some very inspiring family-owned groups, and we would love to achieve what they have in 40 years of operation. We believe we can do big things.”
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