August 19, 2025 |
When I call Harri, he’s tucked away in his Poplar studio, apron on, tape measure hanging loosely around his neck. He speaks with the measured calm of someone who builds worlds slowly, layer by layer, as if in dialogue with his materials. London is home now, though his roots stretch back to Kerala, India. It’s fitting, then, that 10 Magazine’s very own Sonya Mazuryk’s shoot with him should weave together the surrealism of mascots and the grandeur of London’s landmarks. “I’ve always wanted to do something like that,” he says, voice warm with appreciation. “This is where I started my design education. Other than my parents, I have everything here [in London]. It’s my second home.”
Visually, this shoot feels dreamlike and disjointed, as if the city itself were part of the performance. Backdropped by Big Smoke monuments like the London Eye and St. Paul’s Cathedral, the scenes take on an otherworldly theatricality. In a few of the shots, a velvet-clad model banters with a Charlie Chaplin impersonator, blurring past and present with slapstick intimacy. In another, a latex halo encircles a contortionist who planks in front of Tower Bridge, their body rigid yet absurdly angelic. One figure leans against a lamp post with the Shard glinting in the distance, a cinematic anchor to the chaos. The attention-drawing surrealism of the looks, with their uncanny parallels to mascots, finds further amplification through Mazuryk’s experimental editing style, which splices and reframes reality into a carnival of shifting identities.
The shoot centres on Chapter Five, Harri’s SS25 collection, and as with much of his work, it is latex that takes centre stage. “It’s the first fully latex ready-to-wear collection,” he explains. “Before, I always mixed materials. This time, I told myself I’d put my foot down and just celebrate this one material in all its glory. People always advise you to use cotton, make something more wearable, more marketable – but I realised that was diluting my vision. Chapter Five was about saying no to all that and focusing on what excites me: the material and the craftsmanship.”
For Harri, latex isn’t a gimmick – it’s an obsession, a philosophy even. “What attracts me is the making,” he says, almost reverently. “Latex is 100 per cent hand-processed. No machines. You cut it, glue it, polish it all by hand. It’s laborious, yes, but it’s also satisfying. I think I enjoy making more than wearing, and latex speaks to that part of me. Plus, it’s biodegradable. There’s a lot of integrity in it.”
When I ask about his wider inspirations, Harri smiles. “I’m colour blind,” he admits, “so I see things in terms of light and shadow. I look at where light falls on a body, how it reflects in clothing. I love sculpture – if there were such a thing as sculpture porn, I’d be into it. Pots, ceramics, architecture… I get lost in these worlds of form.” His process, he explains, is less about mood boards and more about conversations – between himself and his material, or between an object and its potential new life on the body. “I might see a wasp, or a piece of pottery in a museum, and think: what if I scale this up for the human form? Then I take it to latex and we have a dialogue. Sometimes the material resists, sometimes it surprises me, and what comes out is the result of that push and pull.”
It’s hard to imagine Harri in another life, but he tells me fashion wasn’t the obvious path. “I actually wanted to be a bodybuilder,” he laughs. Growing up in Kerala, the dream was muscle, not material. “Design school was a compromise with my parents – they wanted me to do something professional, not just ‘art’. But bodybuilding consumed me, and I realised it wasn’t healthy, not something I could sustain. I had this huge void afterwards, so I poured all that energy into fashion design. That’s really how I got here.”
These days, his routine is a rigorously scheduled dance between trains, coffee and studio time. “I wake up around 5:30, snooze until six, then walk to the National Rail. Costa coffee in hand, apron on and then it’s cutting, gluing, taking calls from production, putting out fires. During Fashion Week, I’ll stay until 8:30 at night, then head home for 11. Repeat for a month.” It’s a grind, but one he seems to embrace with quiet determination.
With Fashion Week looming, Harri is keen to stress the accessibility of his latest work. “It’s fully ready-to-wear. Not artisanal, not performative. It’s about transferring the essence of my artistic work into clothes people can actually buy and wear. And affordability is key – we don’t want this to be out of reach. This collection is for London creatives, people who go to museums, who love sculpture and art. That’s who I’m making for.”
The plan is a catwalk format – if all the pieces fall into place. “I’ve been called an emerging designer for five seasons now, which feels strange. But yes, the will is there. The venue, the sponsors… we’ll see. The universe will provide.”
When I press him on where he sees the brand heading, Harri shakes off the idea of long-term roadmaps. “I don’t do five- or ten-year plans. I build in daily blocks. Wherever one day takes me, the next follows. I never wanted to be a designer, but here I am. Maybe my team has visions, but I don’t call myself a creative director. I just focus on the work in front of me.” Then, after a beat, he adds: “But I do want to be part of a cultural powerhouse. That’s the dream – to make the work as rich as possible so we can be that.”
It’s an answer that feels telling: humble, almost reluctant, but ambitious all the same. In Harri’s world, latex isn’t just fabric – it’s sculpture, process and possibility. And perhaps, in the folds and curves of his designs, lies the foundation of the cultural force he’s already quietly building.
Photographer SONYA MAZURYK
Fashion editor HALYNA HUMENIUK
Model LOUISA FERNANDO
Hair KYOSUKE TANZAWA
Make-up CHIHARU WAKABAYASHI using Merit Beauty
Photographer’s assistant ANDREY GALUKHIN
Fashion assistants TONY AMAL and LIUBOV SLIUSAREVA
