When Harris Reed pops up on my screen from the Nina Ricci atelier in Paris, he’s wearing a white T-shirt with the brand’s logo across the front. “I’m so sorry I’m wearing a T-shirt,” the British-American designer says. “I just spilled an entire smoothie on my blouse.” It’s a winter Monday morning, and I can relate to that first-day-of-the-week energy. “It’s definitely a fucking Monday,” he says with a laugh. “Crystals on standby.
Born in Los Angeles to parents Nick and Lynette Reed—an Oscar- winning British documentary film- maker and former model turned candle maker and boutique owner, respectively—the designer went to London’s Central Saint Martins, whose graduates include Alexander McQueen and John Galliano. While Reed was still a student, he dressed Solange Knowles and Harry Styles, and shortly after completing his degree in 2020, he and his namesake brand were catapulted to the runway.
“I love that people are getting that energetic sense of joy from putting on the garments, and I think that’s the most I could ever ask for with this brand.” “When you go into a brand and you’re redefining what the customer looks like and what people expect, it’s so difficult because there’s so much rigidity and calculation. I was just like, ‘I want the clothes to be fun; I want the person to feel fun.’ What I love about Nina Ricci is that we’re not Chanel and we’re not Dior—we’re a name that is known in the same spaces, but we’re not that large. We’re not paying anyone to wear Nina Ricci on the red carpet; we’re just building our family of starlets.