'Buy new from us or pre-loved or rent': Nobody's Child AW26 gorgeous collection lands in Harrogate and Leeds with all-occasion choices

Jody Plows, the chief executive of Nobody’s Child, tells Stephanie Smith how the one-stop, all-occasion womenswear brand has proved a hit with Yorkshire style shoppers as it delivers a sustainable message. Harrogate had been on the hit-list for Nobody's Child chief executive Jody Plows years before it finally opened there in May, at the Cenotaph end of James Street. “Since the day we opened that store, it's performed really well, so it was everything we would have hoped it to be,” she says.

The town offers “a really lovely balance of a premium shopping experience,” she points out. “But added to that, a really wonderful destination, a tourist destination, and we find that that combination has worked extremely well for us.

The Harrogate customer, Nobody’s Child research has found, is proud and dedicated to her life in the community, and likes to attend its social events. She is environmentally conscious (brings her own carrier bag), and pays close attention to fabric composition and the impact fast fashion has on the environment. She knows what she wants in terms of fit, material and style, and she loves to shop (staff see the same customers at least once a week). Sundays are busy, comparing trade-wise to Fridays.

Jody has a large family in Yorkshire, and they were excited to see the Leeds store open at Victoria Gate last year. Her husband, Jonathan, from Kippax, is a Leeds United fan. “My son and my husband have season tickets,” she says. “I go up with them to see our stores, and they go to the football.”

Nobody’s Child positions itself as a one-stop shop for all-occasion dressing, and it attracts the sort of style icons you might well want to hang out with, with wearers and collaborators including Phoebe Dynevor, Poppy Delevingne, Sienna Miller, Fearne Cotton and Louise Thompson - all effortlessly cool sophisticates.

It began as a digital-first brand, founded in 2015 by fashion and tech entrepreneur Andrew Xeni. The first Nobody's Child standalone store opened in London in 2021, then a gap until 2024. The last two years have seen an acceleration of its physical retail presence and profile (there are now 11 standalone stores, all down south, except for Leeds and Harrogate), although social media remains an important part of its strategy.

“We like to think that we use social media in a very responsible way to connect with customers, to take them on our journey,” Jody says.

An example is the Materra regenerative cotton farming collection, which involved visiting farmers in Jalna in India to learn how they are healing the land from the effects of intensive agriculture.

“The team put together a really beautiful video and a series of social posts that would take the customer on the journey of behind the scenes, our strategy behind it, and then ultimately the product.”

Nobody’s Child works with lifestyle influencers, too. “We see them as ambassadors of our brand. We work with influencers that authentically love the brand, and again that works really well for us,” says Jody.

“Instagram is our main heartland. But we also use LinkedIn which is more work-facing, but we have really great engagement from people in the industry, and I think that's because we're doing quite a lot in the space of digital product passports, regenerative cotton.”

Nobody's Child achieved B Corp status last year. Its Digital Product Passport (DPP) initiative launched in 2023, developed by Xeni’s tech firm Fabacus, and accessed via the QR code on care label, which signposts back to raw materials in some cases, and gives advice on re-use, using the Fairly Made platform.

“We're really proud of it,” she says. “There's been lots of learnings on the way and hurdles but we're in a place now where all of our products next year will have the DPP.”

Nobody’s Child head of Sustainability Philly Grogan has written a white paper on the DPP. “Many brands are working on this in the industry, but we want to share our learnings and help other brands,” Jody says.

“I do feel strongly that the customers do care about responsibility. It's a forever changing landscape and I don't ever profess that we're perfect, we're definitely work in progress, but we do try our best to make better decisions when it comes to sourcing products and how we design into product.

“My vision has been really clear: buy the new from us, but a more responsible choice using lower impact fabrics; rent from us, which we offer on selected products on the website; and then buy pre-loved, which you can do through a third party with us at the moment but the vision would be that we will also have that direct to consumer, and we have pre-loved rails in some of our bigger stores, which are really successful.”

More than 8,000 Nobody’s Child have been rented since November, 2024. It’s a popular service with brides, bridal parties and party-goers looking to reduce the impact of occasion dressing.

“It's a great way to try a product, wear it, and if you love it, you might want to keep it in the wardrobe and wear it again and again,” Jody says.

M&S is Nobody’s Child’s biggest retail partner and shareholder, with a 27 per cent stake. Jody says: “We are stocked in 35 stores and we curate that capsule for them, so we purposefully make sure we have a different offering in our stores, and we do the same for John Lewis, and that works really well.”

The summer campaign, Going Somewhere, centred around events. “We've been going on this journey from a dresses brand to a lifestyle brand over the last five years - making sure that we can dress our customer holistically through the season has been really important to us.

“Our hero product is still dresses, but we've expanded and diversified across many categories. Our separates and soft linens, blouses, have all really resonated. Our jersey continues to grow season on season and we've got like a really solid denim business now. “The highlight from this spring summer has been spring jackets and I think that's because the weather's been a bit volatile.

“At the other end of the spectrum, our occasion dressing has been amazing. We've really stretched our premium handwriting on dressing for every occasion, bridal, bridesmaids, and I think that all-round one-stop we like to be for all events is working really well.”

Soon to launch is the autumn/winter collection (the biggest yet). Some is launching now in preparation for the full AW26 drop on September 1. “We very much take a steer from the weather,” says Jody, adding that, for the Yorkshire stores: “We've found that we do need to weatherproof slightly more. So we sell a higher mix of outerwear, for example, or a slightly different timing of the mix.

“We're very excited about our growth areas, which are knitwear, outerwear, and our footwear. We launched footwear a year ago, so that's a big strategic growth for us. As we have more stores, footwear and accessories become more meaningful for us.

“Trend-wise, we're really excited about checks, beautiful figs and berry colours, and lots of layering pieces.”

Elizabeth Scarlett launched a second collaboration this year. “She was wearing our brand and we loved Elizabeth Scarlett accessories so I messaged her on social media and we ended up meeting,” says Jody. “It was the same for Poppy. She had come into our Carnaby Street store.

“We have got an exciting collaboration next year, which I can't tell you about, but yes, I think the right collaborations for us are the ones that are really authentic and align with our values on sustainability.”

The brand is looking towards more stores, “but in a very considered and measured way”, Jody says, adding that northern stores will be a focus, as will larger stores, so that customers who see styles online can then try them on.

“I have a lot of vintage in my wardrobe,” she says. “I mix vintage with investment pieces, really. Everybody who works in our office is very immersed in the brand, so at the moment I'm living in dresses that take me from day to evening - that's basically my wardrobe.”

Other brands keep a close eye on where Nobody’s Child opens. “It really is a huge compliment but ultimately we want to connect with all women, so we're quite ambitious with that,” she says, adding that NC styles have agelessness designed into them. “We see in our stores all the time mums, daughters and grandmas coming in.”

Consumer confidence is still challenging, however. “The customer wants to make a considered purchase and is more mindful about what they are buying for themselves. We try to really focus on what we're doing well as a brand and stay true to that. And when we think about value for a customer, we are very much thinking about quality, longevity of a garment and what that means for the customer mindset.

“I also think that there's a lot of pressure on the global supply chains navigating tariffs, increasing costs. So for that we just mitigate and navigate working very closely with our suppliers on how we're sourcing product globally.

“But I stay optimistic that if you are really focusing on your customer and your brand stays true to their values, that really resonates with your customer base.”

nobodyschild.com