ABOUT
Harri is an Indian-born artist and designer based in London. In 2020 he graduated from the Menswear MA at the London College of Fashion with a collection entitled ‘Let’s Put Him in a Vase’, which quickly became an internet sensation. The same year he was awarded the PRACTICAL INTELLIGENT GENIUS FOUNDATION prize, an award established by the Danish designer Henrik Vibskov as a means of nurturing creative talent and helping designers financially proceed with their work. Harri is a British Fashion Council NEWGEN recipient for 2022/23.
"Harri's academic journey at India's National Institute of Fashion Technology was not limited to the boundaries of fashion. Harri simultaneously trained to become a bodybuilder. It became a fascination. The discipline it took to tune the symmetry of his body was therapeutic; it had the same rhythm as creating a fashion collection with its months of shaping, bulking and cutting. A graceful, elegant process.
He believes that fashion stands as a synonym for non-conformity and that being audacious and idiosyncratic is inherent to the industry. His work primarily explores, investigates and thrives on being inclusive of various crafts and art forms of the world. From using a century-old art of woodturning from India to crafting with the highest quality latex from SriLankan to tailoring the finest wool from Scotland, he believes that stitching the diverse fragments of human significance through the lens of culture, craftsmanship and community would be a starting point for a world without boundaries.
“What do we call clothes that aren’t clothes as we know them? The work of Harikrishnan Keezhathil Surendran Pillai—or Harri—is impossible to place within conventions. He is striving for an ideal that is playful, expressive and roving. Think of a hand-carved children’s toy on the verge of toppling over before it sways back into balance”.