With London Style Week celebrating its fortieth anniversary this yr, Harris Reed felt like the proper designer to kick off the festivities. The buzzy London designer staged his first-ever on-calendar present final night time on the Tate Trendy, dazzling visitors together with his “fluid, demi-couture” utilizing “precious, found fabrics” on designs.
Fashions swanned across the stage carrying dramatic crinoline hooped skirts, and corsets all wrapped in classic lace tablecloths, Victorian bedspreads, and vintage curtains. His signature camp-couture was on full show.
“I felt a lot of pressure to put on a big performance and really be proud and loud and British,” Harris tells me after we chatted a number of weeks in the past.
The younger designer has been one of the crucial thrilling British skills to observe since his days finding out at Central Saint Martins, the place he first caught the eye of Hollywood stars like Harry Types and Solange Knowles. In reality, he quickly went on to create designs for Types’s world tour stage costumes between 2017-2018, reworking him into the following name-to-know. Then, when Harry Types wore customized Harris Reed as the primary male cowl star of Vogue US in December 2020, Harris’ transformation right into a globally famend designer was full.
“I’ve always been this theatrical dark horse, and I felt a responsibility, especially coming up to 40 years of LFW, to come together, make some noise and show the world what we have here in London,” he said.
When we spoke ahead of London Fashion Week this season, Harris was in a particularly reflective mood, opening up about the struggles of maintaining a thriving brand in a challenging economic landscape when so many are scaling down or shuttering. Having to prioritise sales has also meant designers have been churning out more commercially viable or sellable designs, as evidenced by pared-down designs on the runways of the last few seasons. Harris, however, decided to double-down on his desire to create fantastical fashion. “When I interned with fashion designers like Jeremy Scott or Pierpaolo Piccioli, they always told me that I have to create my own universe and be unapologetic about it, and everything else will follow,” he mentioned. “And every time I lean into the theatricality and showmanship, things have arrived.”
It is a advantageous steadiness, nevertheless, between managing the enterprise and inventive features of the model. Harris cites strategic partnerships as one of many methods he is been in a position to develop his universe and attain new audiences with out having to dilute the integrity of his personal label. After a profitable, ongoing collaboration with jewelry model Missoma, final night time he unveiled his newest partnership with Royal Salute, the scotch whiskey model launched in 1953 in tribute to Queen Elizabeth II on the day of her Coronation. “The way to make business work in these times, besides having incredible clients, is also about partnering with people that want to grow into that world,” Harris mentioned. “I think alcohol for me felt like an amazing next step (and I think in the next five to 10 years maybe I’ll go into skin, beauty and fragrance—my mother was a perfumer for 25 years and a candlemaker), but it’s these collaborations that also allow you to earn revenue to then be able to push boundaries and create the shows you want.”
