Harris Reed F/W 2022.23 London

[vogue28]

VOGUE.COM

 

[dior_couture1245]

No thank you. Kind of getting tired of this drag queen aesthetic from all these young kids.

I don't hate the last skirt, and the flared black/white lace pants are quite lovely, but they remind me of a far better executed pair of Lacroix Couture pants from back in 2002.

 

[Frederic01]

One season later and the finish and craftsmanship of his clothes has not improved one bit. It still looks amateurish and incredibly cheap, and this time I see that Schiaparelli was on the moodboard instead of Alessandro Michele and Alexander McQueen.

Reed seems like an incredibly nice and charming young person, but once you take away the whole social media hype and famous friends, their clothes are just not that interesting. The menswear reminds me of another young designer from Spain, Arturo Obegero, who has far better skills but who hasn't received even half the attention due to a less aggressive social media/influencer strategy, which is sad, because these days if seems followers is all that counts for young talent.

Reed truly is the Stella McCartney of our generation; famous and rich father, relying on famous friends to model their clothes to promote their brand, having a prominent woke cause as a raison d'être (Vegetarian then, Non-Binary now), lots of exorbitant-up press coverage, and not much talent or effort put into developing an interesting and dynamic brand where the clothes are impeccably designed and crafted.

 

[YohjiAddict]

Tired and tacky…it really takes forever for Milan to come and some tastefulness to start showing up.

 

[THD96]

Reed truly is the Stella McCartney of our generation; famous and rich father, relying on famous friends to model their clothes to promote their brand, having a prominent woke cause as a raison d'être (Vegetarian then, Non-Binary now), lots of exorbitant-up press coverage, and not much talent or effort put into developing an interesting and dynamic brand where the clothes are impeccably designed and crafted

Don't care for Harris Reed, but Stella McCartney Chloé years already proved that she is very talent. Her success at Chloé and her own brand early years were based on her clothes, not her connection or her sustainable approach (which she done it before it became cool and trendy).

Her clothes are very good quality and definitely more convincible in terms of design, execution and price points than other contemporary brands.

I don't know why Stella keep being use as a bad example of nepotism, while infact I wish the nepotism people can be as good as her. At the end of the day, connection can only gets her so far. It's the quality and the designs that her clients buying, not her father last name.

Yes, her brand maybe kind of lost or directionless now, but frankly 2022 which brand doesn't. Even a visionary like Miuccia is struggling right now so.

 

[Frederic01]

Don't care for Harris Reed, but Stella McCartney Chloé years already proved that she is very talent. Her success at Chloé and her own brand early years were based on her clothes, not her connection or her sustainable approach (which she done it before it became cool and trendy).

Her clothes are very good quality and definitely more convincible in terms of design, execution and price points than other contemporary brands.

I don't know why Stella keep being use as a bad example of nepotism, while infact I wish the nepotism people can be as good as her. At the end of the day, connection can only gets her so far. It's the quality and the designs that her clients buying, not her father last name.

Stella McCartney would have never been hired at Chloé if it wasn't for her famous name, let's be honest. Her fame and the aura about brand McCartney (father Paul, mother Linda, etc) brought the much needed hype that Chloé was after to put the brand on the map at that time. As for the clothes, well they were quite average, especially if you compare what Phoebe Philo did immediately after arriving and well into her tenure at the brand.

Personally I find Stella McCartney's whole "green" ethos to be completely performative. A lot of her clothes are made in places like China, Romania, Bulgaria, Portugal, etc. And a lot of her fabrics are supposedly "green" but are also produced using chemicals like acid, are not biodegradable, and also produced in factories that destroy the immediate environs in which they are produced. You'll also notice that when her clothes are sold on retailers like Net-A-Porter, FarFetch, etc, when they are made in China or Bulgaria or Romania, etc, that is conveniently erased from the product information. Only when the items are Made in Italy, is it proudly displayed. It's a bit of a con if you ask me, intended to [falsely] imply a sense of luxury when in fact it is a cost-cutting exercise meant to protect profit margins for LVMH.

In terms of design, well, her pieces are below average in terms of creativity IMO. The level at which she designs is on par with Sydney Australian Fashion Week. It's just very commercial and unoriginal department-store clothing. Certainly not what you'd expect of a designer showing at Paris Fashion Week.

Out of the Nepotism crew, personally I find Victoria Beckham's design aesthetic to be much more alluring and chic. She just gets on with the job and creates beautiful and timeless pieces. The quality and construction of the clothes is also much better. I see a lot more of her clothes are being Made in the United Kingdom which is such a great move too. And The Row, well, that is just on another stratosphere in terms of quality and taste compared to Stella's clothes. You can't even compare.

 

[Cocteau Stone]

Reed's way of showcasing non-binary representation is rather insular and grating. In fact, much of the LGBTQI+ community's approach to representing gender expression is becoming pigeonholed especially in fashion. As a gay person myself, this kind of flexing I find infuriating because it is turning what we don't want to be viewed as: a stereotyped novelty. I don't want to knock on those that do like to dress in this kind of way - you do you - but when the same narrative is being pushed it makes it appear as though that there is select ways in which gender expression can be done. Plus, the community is cliquey as hell as and if you deviate away from the expected gendered expression you are met with the coldest of shoulders. We unknowingly have a knack for becoming the thing we hate so much.

Probably seem bitter, but this collection leaves me cold. Reed designs for themselves and only for themselves. It's littered with expected tropes and fabrications, and reeks of someone that has had the most privileged of upbringings that is being shoved in my face as a current pinnacle of gender expression. Pass.

 

[THD96]

Out of the Nepotism crew, personally I find Victoria Beckham's design aesthetic to be much more alluring and chic. She just gets on with the job and creates beautiful and timeless pieces. The quality and construction of the clothes is also much better. I see a lot more of her clothes are being Made in the United Kingdom which is such a great move too. And The Row, well, that is just on another stratosphere in terms of quality and taste compared to Stella's clothes. You can't even compare

Phoebe is a better designer than Stella, but she doesn't fit with the spirit of Chloé like Stella. Like her Spring 2001, she capture perfectly the fun free spirited, Parisian flair, with a touch of vulgarity of Chloé that sometimes Phoebe struggle to capture during her tenure.


Stella brand is better than VB or TR in terms of brand proposition (SM is a contemporary brand while TR is branded as luxury) and her clothes are not pretentious. VB doesn't even have an identity and for years she has been trying so hard to chase down the Céline aesthetic that doesn't look natural to her, that why you see her company is always struggling because if the clothes you designed doesn't look natural on you, how can you convince people to buy into your brand. Same with TR, they may success in convincing people that they're the same as Phoebe but frankly they only got the surface but never the soul and the audacity.

As for taste, both VB and TR are so strategically avoid having fun and being vulgar or willing to make mistakes that they end up being cold and sterile.

 

[bc collector]

Like many here, I'm getting sick and tired of seeing guys decked in women frocks proposed as progressive or innovative fashion...Ever since Palomo Spain broke into the scene (btw, what happened to him? Not that it was hard to predict his commercial failure...) we have witnessed a flood of these gestures, reflected in millions of IG postings or Billy Porter appearances, but ultimately you are left with the aftertaste of something forced and for the sake of itself (and lazy), despite the moral posturing behind it.
I think I have to repeat myself, but men's and women's body ARE different and fashion (as construction of functional clothes meant for people to wear, as opposed to costumes to perform) cannot but reflect that, unless we want to condemn ourselves to a future of shapeless streetwear inspired garbage (if Dante were still alive, he would have reserved a special place in Hell for fuccbois) or Drag Queen visual imagery. Sooner or later biology will reclaim its territory.
Plus, it's not like these kids are breaking new boundaries, they are just creating parodies of fashion in the path opened by older, more intelligent and tasteful designers, Rei Kawakubo and Jean Paul Gaultier to start with.
What irks me the most is that collections like this prop themselves on a form of implicit ethic blackmailing against criticism (say you find them risible and you are against the Zeitgeist, if not a simpleton), when the reality of it is that, like often in London, once the spotlight is off, nobody will remember these clothes for longer that two minutes.

 

[YohjiAddict]

Palomo Spain is now relegated to be a judge on a second-rate sewing show (where half of the contestants seem to have been introduced to sewing that same afternoon), to the delight of menopausal women all across his home country!

 

[WinstonH20]

Palomo Spain is now relegated to be a judge on a second-rate sewing show (where half of the contestants seem to have been introduced to sewing that same afternoon), to the delight of menopausal women all across his home country!

He is also one of the 20 recently announced semi-finalists for this year's LVMH Prize for whatever it's worth.