The theatricality of Harris Reed

«London fashion week needs a bit of drama», this is how Harris Reed conquered the Tate modern. The curtain of the British capital’s five-day runway show rises with the off-schedule show of the Anglo-American talent, who will fly to Paris to seal his catwalk debut at the design helm of Nina Ricci on march 3. While insiders await the former Central Saint Martins protégé’s «amplified femininity» for the historic french maison, the designer is dressing London in theatricality with the fluid fashion show of his eponymous brand. Harris Reed takes the runway in the cathedral of modern art on the banks of the Thames.

«It is a dream. It was the first museum I went to when I moved to London eight years ago, and I have always had a deep fantasy of it», Reed said. «With everything that is going to happen at Nina Ricci, it is an important step to remind people that Harris Reed will still be very much in British fashion». The designer, a champion of demi-couture as an ode to gender fluidity, brings to the stage his made-to-measure where the clothes matter as much as the wow effect that comes as soon as the beginning of the show, which comes to life on the notes of two cellos. «Clothing has a transformative power, whether for an actor, or simply a performer on the stage of life», actor and friend Florence Pugh said. The don’t worry darling star opened the evening wrapped in a sequined dress-construction invaded by a black and silver diamond pattern and topped with a large hoop rising from her shoulders like a giant halo.

«The art of dressing up allows us to express who we really are, creating a safe space to inhabit in a sometimes-judgmental world. Our costumes can change who we want to be seen as, and who we are destined to be. I invite you to embrace the lamé and sequins of life, because all the world is a stage». And it is precisely «all the world’s a stage», William Shakespeare’s famous line from the pastoral play As you like it, that gives Harris Reed’s collection its title. A hymn to the performative nature of dress as an instrument of freedom, which is capable of enhancing personality and character, and one’s individuality. A dramatic representation made even more melodramatic by the appearance of the garments, some of them are made from the deadstock 80 meters of theater curtains reused in an upcycling operation as gold lamé fabric in a riot of draping on the hips or long wraparound shawls. In a clash of references and a riot of gold and deep blacks, debutantes and beauty pageant queens, with their all glamour and excess outfits, meet the monumental semi-abstract sculptures of British artist Henry Moore. From his works come the organic shapes and curved lines that pervade cuts and silhouettes.

Between bulging miniskirts and a corsetry used now to exaggerate the waistline, now to give unexpected shapes that redefine the anatomy of bodies, here are plastic elements that help rethink human volumes by grafting themselves onto clothes as they protrude and articulate in space, alongside materials of a thousand glimmers that draw Harlequin patterns on tights and second-skin tops, as opposed to total black velvets.

Judgment. The collection is made with only ten looks and yet they are so huge, precious, inclusive, multifaceted that they deserve to be seen from every angle and thus multiply endlessly, whether you want to call it demi-couture or performative clothing, Harris Reed’s spectacular one-piece fashion is the apotheosis of «wowness». Thinking back to last season, when the host was Adam Lambert singing Nessun dorma, it is clear that the designer’s success is supported (and amplified) by those friends-performer-superstars with whom Reed shares the spotlight. (all rights reserved)