Fashion Goes Fluid

A new generation of designers is challenging the fashion industry to think beyond gender

- Alison S. Cohn

Harris Reed—who stands just Hover 2m in 5-inch platform boots—dreams big. The 24-year-old designer, who identifies as gender fluid, outfitted Harry Styles with a world tour’s worth of lamé pussy-bow blouses and worked on Gucci’s design team, all while he was a student at the London arts and design school Central Saint Martins. When the pandemic cancelled the graduate showcase last May, he found a way to reach an even bigger audience by creating a giant disc hat filter on Instagram, which was “worn” by Kaia Gerber, Jeremy O. Harris, Kiernan Shipka and more than a million other fans. “I’d like to eradicate the categories of menswear and womenswear,” Reed says. “Fluidity offers an alternate way of being, crossing and merging masculine and feminine.”