Harris Reed - Designer, Creative Director of Nina Ricci

[blueorchid]

I think a turning point if Puig JPG to do a couture collab, then with JPG's studio, the clothes won't be badly made for once... so upsetting to think about it...

A turning point to hell...

 

[TomBlanksFullFatMiuMiu]

A turning point to hell...

Its really sad to see Showstudio roasting his Nina Ricci season after season objectively, then later Nick Knight photographing his work for Vogue on Naomi (with tons of wrinkles fabrics of course)...

 

[The Byron Boy]

According to Wikipedia, his dad is a media, entertainment and technology entrepreneur, with interests in film finance, viral video marketing, motion picture and television production and his mother is a model. I'm sure that helped.

To be honest, I don't like his designs most of the time, but I think he knows who he is as a designer, like I see a clear identity in his brand. I just think questionable taste and bad execution gets in his way a lot, though.

I think he benefited from a time in the last years where the gender-fluid and over the top approach got traction, specially in celebrities. I don't know how things will change in the future. Many places in Europe and America are getting more and more politically conservative when it comes to presentation (or more specifically, gender presentation) so sometimes I've wondered if designers like him will get affected somehow. Just some random thoughts.

 

[blueorchid]

I can't fault his parents for using their connections. Could you imagine Harris Reed working in any other field?

 

[tourbillions]

his future is that his parents buy the brand and it becomes another department store luxury brand like christian lacroix/john galliano/pierre cardin.

 

[LadyJunon]

Its really sad to see Showstudio roasting his Nina Ricci season after season objectively, then later Nick Knight photographing his work for Vogue on Naomi (with tons of wrinkles fabrics of course)...

The worst thing is that they actually really liked him before the Nina Ricci appointement. That said, they often switch like this when young designers start becoming successful.

 

[TomBlanksFullFatMiuMiu]

I can't fault his parents for using their connections. Could you imagine Harris Reed working in any other field?

Modelling like Hadids or Jenner
Kill me

 

[TomBlanksFullFatMiuMiu]

According to Wikipedia, his dad is a media, entertainment and technology entrepreneur, with interests in film finance, viral video marketing, motion picture and television production and his mother is a model. I'm sure that helped.

To be honest, I don't like his designs most of the time, but I think he knows who he is as a designer, like I see a clear identity in his brand. I just think questionable taste and bad execution gets in his way a lot, though.

I think he benefited from a time in the last years where the gender-fluid and over the top approach got traction, specially in celebrities. I don't know how things will change in the future. Many places in Europe and America are getting more and more politically conservative when it comes to presentation (or more specifically, gender presentation) so sometimes I've wondered if designers like him will get affected somehow. Just some random thoughts.

People in this thread (I assume at least some of us are working in the industry like me), still refer Harris as him lol
This fact speaks something

He isn't the only gender-fluid designer tho, his work is very similar to Palomo Spain
Where is Charles Jeffrey that lot I wonder?

He has the same PR as Simone Rocha and Molly Goddard tho, Daisy is one of the best in London

 

[The Byron Boy]

People in this thread (I assume at least some of us are working in the industry like me), still refer Harris as him lol
This fact speaks something

He used to go by they/them but he goes by he/him since a few years now. He said so in an interview. I'm just respecting that.

 

[Steddycam91]

Are we sure Harris isn’t a Drew Droege character?

 

[jeanclaude]

"It" seems more appropriate...

 

[chungkyekye]

puig seems very invested in his nina ricci in terms of ready-to-wear from what i see on the ground.

hong kong and major japanese dept stores are really pushing the collections market-wise. whether or not merchandise is moving is another story but i did not see this push for the botter(?) duo when they were there. they are serving the same clientele as patou which i'm not sure retailers r buying into because they actually sell stuff or because its LVMH.

 

[LadyJunon]

puig seems very invested in his nina ricci in terms of ready-to-wear from what i see on the ground.

hong kong and major japanese dept stores are really pushing the collections market-wise. whether or not merchandise is moving is another story but i did not see this push for the botter(?) duo when they were there. they are serving the same clientele as patou which i'm not sure retailers r buying into because they actually sell stuff or because its LVMH.

Honestly, I miss the Botter duo. They had a lot of potential with their debut collection. The issue was that they made really beautiful coats and tailoring for the brand, but they sucked at anything fluo. On top of that, the brand promotion was non-existent during the pandemic.

 

[Drusilla_]

He has the same PR as Simone Rocha and Molly Goddard tho, Daisy is one of the best in London

at least Simone and Molly's designs aren't solely meant for red carpet, they're things that a slightly quirky non-fashion woman would want to wear - like the kind of woman who haunts DSM could easily slot a big poofy skirt in her wardrobe and they're physically comfortable

this dude?I hope his designs are better made than they appear to be because in shows they legit look like the fashion equivalent of the 'graphic design is my passion' meme.

 

[gallianostan]

People in this thread (I assume at least some of us are working in the industry like me), still refer Harris as him lol
This fact speaks something

He isn't the only gender-fluid designer tho, his work is very similar to Palomo Spain
Where is Charles Jeffrey that lot I wonder?

he's a dude, prancing around in ugly womenswear and pretending to be some kind of genderless fairy. all those awful, horrid, stomach-turning 'gender-fluid' designers operate in the same realm of pretentious, grotesquely ugly, unintelligent bullsh*t

 

[BitterFashionQueen90]

He said in an interview growing up as a ‘queer kid’ he would only watch Glee, Rupaul and The Rachel Zoe project. Very telling.

 

[LadyJunon]

Harris Reed to launch Vénus, a new fragrance line for Nina Ricci. The fragrance has been in development since 2022 and is slated to launch in European markets after the SS25 show on Sept. 27.

EXCLUSIVE: Nina Ricci’s Harris Reed Launches New Fragrance Franchise With Vénus
The women’s fragrance comes after Nina was introduced in 2006 and L’Air du Temps in 1948.

By Jennifer Weil
September 16, 2024, 1:00am

PARIS — For his first fragrance, Nina Ricci creative director Harris Reed is introducing Vénus, a women’s scent that launches a new perfume franchise for the brand. It marks the third pillar since Nina in 2006 and L’Air du Temps in 1948.

Even before officially starting at the fabled French fashion house in 2022, the designer began on the perfume project.

“I was whisked away to Grasse, where I met my team properly for the first time and was literally picking jasmine,” Reed said.

“We think it is the right moment to come with the third perfume that completes our trilogy,” said Ana Trias Arraut, vice president of Carolina Herrera and Nina Ricci at parent company Puig. That’s because there’s been work done on the Nina Ricci brand overall.

“It was about how we could reimagine this incredible heritage and legacy with a new perspective and an eye,” Reed said. Vénus was fashioned to sync with that.

The British American designer is no stranger to fragrance.

“For me, having a mother that’s been a perfumer for 25 years, fragrance has been a [key] part of my design ethos, creativity,” said Reed, who loves scent for its ability to trigger memory. “As someone who was a child of the world — I moved 30 times before I went to university in London — I always relied on smell to set me back to a happier time, a different world, a different space.

“As a kid, I was always quite obsessed with the psychology around fragrance,” he continued. “I mix everything in the morning. I never wear one perfume; I wear about 20. Even my husband laughs at me, because we have nothing but perfumes and candles burning.”

Reed has long worn perfumes created by Puig — he sported Nina as a teen, while his mom had L’Air du Temps among the many scents on her nightstand — and fragrance was part of his lure to Nina Ricci. (He also has a signature fashion brand, and paraded his spring 2025 collection last week in London.)

“My involvement in perfume was one of the most exciting counterparts to the design and fashion,” said Reed, who — like for fashion creation — had mood boards and key words in mind for the new perfume.

Coming into his fourth collection with a fragrance for Nina Ricci, he said: “It’s a beautiful way to showcase the woman, an individual that I’m trying to target with the brand and magnify into the world.”

Reed conjured up notions of a modern Nina Ricci individual — and what she or he would smell like. This person, he said, is very strong.

The last Nina Ricci fragrance to come out was an iteration of Nina nine years ago.

“I wanted this addictive vanilla, white patchouli, things that I myself wore,” Reed said. Magnolia became a pivotal note after he smelled it in Grasse. Reed described that flower as explosive olfactively and very of the moment.

“I had this ambition: It has to be big, addictive, sensual and celebratory of womanhood and of individuals,” Reed saidnof Vénus. “Twisting, manipulating and making something feel new is very exciting.”

He worked with DSM-Firmenich perfumers Alexandra Monet, Olivier Cresp, who developed Nina, and Nathalie Lorson.

“It was wild to understand the level of detail and meticulousness that went into this,” said Reed, who was involved in all steps of the project.

Taking almost two years to develop the fragrance gave him the luxury of time “that also kept making me dream. So every time I would leave a fragrance meeting, I’d run back into the fashion studio, the atelier and be like: Change this, change that. Because fragrance, again, it makes you dream, romanticize and think.”

“I’ve totally broken all my NDAs with how many people I’ve let try it,” Reed said with a laugh. “But I think it’s OK, because we’re a family. My mom loves it. She found it really interesting.”

Puig executives would not discuss projections, but industry sources estimate Vénus will generate about 25 million euros in first-year retail sales.

The new fragrance’s name nods to a fascination of Robert Ricci, Nina Ricci’s son, who kicked off the brand’s perfume business.

“He was really obsessed with mythology,” said Edwin Bodson, director of Nina Ricci Fashion and Beauty. “So Venus, being the goddess of love and beauty, was an evidence to us. We fought for a very long time to get that name.”

Whereas Nina represents self-esteem and L’Air du Temps, peace, love and freedom, Vénus is meant to channel self-love, according to Trias Arraut. That led them to the bottle shape.

“When we landed on the shell, for me it was an object of desire, something so sought after, jewel-esque and precious,” said Reed, explaining that at Nina Ricci, fragrance bottles are always also symbols. (Think of the entwined doves on the L’Air du Temps flacon or the apple-shaped Nina bottle.)

“It feels like magnification — you’re a goddess,” he said, referring to the Vénus flacon flanked by a golden shell and topped with an asymmetric black, rounded cap. “So many trials to get it just perfect.

“This was my first time creating a perfume of this magnitude, but also creating a bit of iconography,” Reed said. “That was super exciting and rewarding, something I didn’t think I was going to be able to do this early in my career.”

Rebecca Dayan, wearing a resin top with ombré gold and a black fish tail, is the perfume’s muse. The French actress is the face of the campaign.

“I love that she has that slight je ne sais quoi,” said Reed, calling Dayan “a modern-day icon. We reimagined her as this modern-day Venus posing in front of the shell, being like a modern-day mermaid. You completely get transported into this other world.”

Charlotte Wales lensed the campaign.

“I’ve been a massive admirer over the years,” Reed said.

He believes the Vénus image “completely represents my new direction of the brand.”

The fragrance will officially launch right after the next Nina Ricci show in Paris on Sept. 27, following which attendees will have a reveal of Vénus at a party.

The eau de parfum is to launch across France in 2024, then other European markets, such as Switzerland Belgium and Spain, Canada and Latin America, next year.

Prices range from 72 euros for a 30-ml. eau de parfum to 134 euros for an 80-ml. version and 176 euros for a 200-ml. refill.

“I’m really excited for this next chapter of the house,” Reed said.

WWD

 

[LadyJunon]

I guess this is a good sign for the brand. I'm not the biggest fan of Reed's NR, but it must resonate with an audience, especially with the lowered price point.

 

[Salvatore]

I thought he left from this brand. I guess I am mixing him up with someone else.

 

[lookatme]

Wow. Reading that was painful. He’s so low IQ and so inarticulate.