How Nonna Lietta’s founder keeps the brand woven with love

“The first designs that I created for Nonna Lietta were all inspired by my grandmother,” says Greek-Italian designer Lietta Kasimati from her Athens studio. It’s on a cobbled street that hedges the National Archaeological Museum, right in the bustle of the city. You can imagine Kasimati’s grandmother – a 1960s aesthete with Roman origins – walking down these alleys wearing a swipe of red lipstick, a fine knit and a pair of heels (always).

It’s the influence of grandmother Lietta – her granddaughter shares her name – that anchors the brand; its pieces have a handmade sensibility that’s classic and gentle, and are threaded with a little whimsy. “When my grandmother knitted, she liked to add small details,” says Kasimati. “If there wasn’t a pretty adornment, there was colour: bold splashes of it. She has passed down her love of knitwear to me.”

Nonna Lietta’s genesis came when Kasimati was at a crossroads in her life. She was living in Belgium, working in fashion retail, and had to decide between a progress-marked career path that stretched comfortably ahead of her or a riskier, entrepreneurial adventure. She returned to her native Athens and launched Nonna Lietta in 2018, while Greece was still riding the stormy waves of the financial crisis. Design and daily operations took place in Athens, while production was outsourced to Barcelona.

Eight years on, the brand has grown an international customer base (the US is its biggest market) and Kasimati has been able to turn her focus to Greek manufacturing, joining a growing group of young entrepreneurs who are helping to slowly revive the dormant sector. Nonna Lietta’s sheep yarn is sourced from high in the mountains of northern Greece, where the label’s current manufacturing partner works with shepherds from the area to source and spin wool exclusively for her. It’s raw, unprocessed and, says Kasimati, “as natural as it gets”. It’s then made into knitwear – slouchy vests, thick, woollen cardigans, delicately ruffled tops – in Athens.

The rest of the yarn, a premium blend of eco wool and alpaca, is sourced in Italy and the pieces are produced in Spain. Kasimati describes Nonna Lietta as an essentially Mediterranean label, with its combination of Italian, Spanish and Greek yarns, craftsmanship and sensibilities.

The newest collection includes elegant navy and pastel “winter bloom” hues, as well as playful star intarsias. “I want our pieces to remind our customers of their childhood, to take them back to that old feeling of warmth,” she says. Nonna Lietta is only sold via the brand’s website and various pop-ups. Kasimati travels to New York every year, as well as occasionally to London, Amsterdam and Paris, to host pop-up shops but her time spent in large-scale retail confirmed to her that wholesale shouldn’t be part of her business model.

She is also in the process of moving to a bigger studio to continue expanding the label’s production, slowly and steadily. “I never dreamed of a super-big brand,” she says. “My dream is really to keep being creative, to maintain our values, to keep it all sustainable.”

Next, Kasimati plans to take on Asia, to bring the message of fine Greek production and craftsmanship to further-flung shores, plus expand and experiment with more yarns. “I want people to invest in our ethos,” she says. “And not just buy for the sake of buying.”
nonnalietta.com