Harris Reed’s Noirish S/S´24 Show

For his spring/summer 2024 collection, Harris Reed grabbed fistfuls of inspiration, running the gamut from surrealism and Savile Row to Film Noir, vintage corsets and Alexander McQueen. Here are the five main takeaways from the designer’s off-schedule start to London Fashion Week.

It was (a bit) more restrained than usual

Pomp, ego and a little bit of self-appointed majesty have long been associated with the kind of clothing that Harris Reed puts forward. It’s why Cardi B called on the designer to create a series of carnival-esque headpieces for “Bongos” just three days before shooting the music video. But this season, Reed said he’d pulled back on all the high-pageant grandeur with a collection of austere(-ish) looks that speak as much to restraint as they do his ongoing fascination with fluid fashion.

Reed’s childhood sketches provided the springboard

“The starting point for this collection was my own childhood drawings,” Reed said. “I realised there’s so much of what I do now in them. All the exaggerated proportions? They don’t belong to this world.” And so: the collection comprised 10 sculptural gowns. Some with cocooning arcs, others with dramatic 3D bows and bouncing pop-up tent hemlines. Sheath-like columns distended into mermaid tails, while draped skirts hung from miniature bustiers. “There is a lot of surrealism in there,” he explained, a Schiaparelli brooch (moulded into the shape of an eye socket) glinting from his lapel.

It was inspired by traditional menswear

Reed tasked himself with achieving a sense of the feminine through masculine tailoring. Those enormous bow structures, for example, were elaborate riffs on the kind of lapels that Tommy Nutter would create in the ’60s. “I didn’t want it to be just, ‘Oh Harris is doing debutantes again’,” he explained. “I’ve felt the pressure to evolve the brand.” Rendered almost entirely in deadstock black velvet and white duchess satin, this collection was an extension of the monochromatic looks that surfaced in his spring/summer 2023 show, punctuated with vintage-patterned corsets. “I usually rely on headwear and boots, but I wanted to push the construction. We sit alongside Schiaparelli and Armani Privé, so we can’t just put a zip in the back and send Beyoncé on stage. It has to fit.”

Cosima performed

The mournful and pristine vocals of Cosima (who also soundtracked Valentino’s autumn/winter 2021 show) opened Reed’s catwalk in the basement of the Tate Modern. The musician began with a sprechstimme rendition of Radiohead’s “Creep”, and ended with Bronski Beat’s anthemic “Smalltown Boy”. The designer, who is known to use fashion as a means to negotiate his own queerness, said music that embraces the listener as an “outcast” resonates with him. “I’m sure it feels a little on the nose but I’ve always loved those songs. Just because I have resonated with those kinds of feelings.”

It was going to be called Film Noir

The models (among them Ashley Graham in a snatched-waist column and a concrete-scraping opera shawl) ambled through pools of light as if they were the lovelorn protagonists in a noir film. “I love that word being in French and me splitting my time between London and Paris,” the designer said. This would have also been the “dark glamour” that Reed had referred to backstage. Including the wing-structured, backless gown that slumped into an Alexander McQueen-inspired bumster. In the end, the collection was named “Duet”, because Reed needs “all the duets [he] can”. “Everything we do is a collaboration, it’s not about me. It’s me and Cosima. It’s me and the milliner, Vivienne Lake. It’s about two aspects complementing each other. Being at both Nina Ricci and Harris Reed, I need all the partners I can get.”