Harri styles it out with Spring/Summer 2025 latex collection

HARRI STYLES IT OUT WITH SPRING/SUMMER 2025 LATEX COLLECTION

In last week’s Virgin Atlantic Attitude Awards story, we referenced London-based latex designer Harri, saying we might now like to take a closer look at this man’s work. We had arrived at this conclusion because his Spring/Summer 2025 collection, launched at London Fashion week earlier in October, revealed signs of embracing more wearable styles alongside the bizarre inflatables that first drew the attention of many to his brand.

Indian-born artist and designer Harri — aka Harikrishnan Keezhathil Surendran Pillai — graduated from the London College of Fashion’s Menswear MA Course in 2020 with a collection entitled Let’s Put Him in a Vase. The same year he was awarded the Practical Intelligent Genius Foundation prize founded by Danish designer Henrik Vibskov to nurture creative talent, and has also been a recipient of the British Fashion Council Newgen grant.

His use of inflatable latex garments to create exaggerated body contours could well have been influenced by the fact that while studying at India's National Institute of Fashion Technology, he was also training to be a bodybuilder. “What do we call clothes that aren’t clothes as we know them?” asks the designer, explaining that he is striving for an ideal that is “playful, expressive and roving”.

Top image: Harri latex deflated! These three SS25 Look Book shots all feature inflatable Harri styles shown in their uninflated states, which may seem a preferable look to some! Left-right: Latex Deflated Trousers £695; Deflated Latex Dress £1,895; Deflated Latex Alien Leg Trousers (photos: Alexis White)

Distinctly wearable: new Harri SS25 women’s latex items, as yet unnamed and unpriced, include, left-right: long-sleeved ankle-length gown; cap-sleeved top over flared miniskirt; cap-sleeved top over ankle-length skirt (photos: Alexis White)

Readers may recall that the inflatable outfit Harri made for Sam Smith to wear at last year’s Brit Awards — a one-piece Alien/insectoid-inspired latex suit — earned the musician and the designer reams of coverage both in the traditional press and on social media. To be fair, not all of the coverage was entirely complimentary — some critics thought that Smith’s wardrobe choice made him look a bit silly. But the outfit did end up in the Design Museum’s Rebel: 30 Years of London Fashion exhibition — so perhaps those critics are not laughing now!

And so to Harri’s new SS25 collection, also known as Chapter Five. The SS25 Look Book that you can find on Harri’s website features 28 images, some of which are brand new styles while others are clearly variations on earlier designs, including some different latex colours and deflated versions of styles previous shown inflated. One of the first things you notice about these Look Book shots by Alexis White is the degree to which many of the images seem to further exaggerate the distorting effects of the garments themselves.

Unfortunately at the time of writing, style descriptions, names and prices could not be found online for all the new pieces, but we’ve provided that info where it was available and made our best guesses where it wasn’t!

To boldly go: More new (some still unnamed and unpriced) SS25 designs, left-right: Tank top over miniskirt (?) with attached inflatable hem ring; Oversized T-Shirt/Dress £625 worn with separate matching hood; Sleeveless top worn with inflatable jodhpurs (photos: Alexis White)

Our overall feeling about Harri’s Chapter Five collection is that this designer is definitely now creating garments that are wearable beyond the attention-craving world of elite catwalks and red carpets. Many of his more recent designs would — assuming you were able to afford them — not look at all out of place at an event like Torture Garden or other fetish clubs where dresscode is king but costuming is more than just an exercise in self-publicity.

But even these latest styles by Harri are a reminder once again of how differently the fashion world and the latex industry can view the same fabric. To suggest one simple distinction: ‘traditional’ latex designers are usually very much influenced by the erotic potential of latex. Fashion designers on the other hand are often more attracted to latex specifically for how it differs from other fabrics — differences that offer new (but not necessarily erotic) ways of standing out from other designers’ work in the mainstream fashion world.

The prices you can see in our captions for some of Harri’s designs are also an indication that latex garments, in the hands of a fashion brand, suddenly become a lot more expensive than any regular latex designer would dare to charge (other than perhaps for the most complex one-off pieces).

Family portraits, left: Tank tops with either attached or separate inflatable skirts; right: SS25 ‘Mitosis look’ featuring Harri’s ‘Black Hole’ style applied to full-length dresses (photos: Alexis White)

But price hikes do not apply just at the high fashion end of the market, where it may be perceived that money is little object. It can happen at the high street retail level too.

Some UK latex fans may recall what happened a few years ago when a London-based fetish brand was commissioned to produce a limited range of women’s rubber fashions for a top high street retail emporium. This small selection of relatively simple styles sold like hot cakes to the store’s regular female customers — and at about twice what you might expect them to cost direct from a dedicated latex brand.

Observing the high street retailer’s pricing, some latex designers scoffed at what they saw as a rip-off by a greedy corporate entity, claiming that they could easily offer the same items for half the price. Well of course they could! Because most latex designers sell direct to their customers, so their retail prices reflect this. A big retailer, however, will be looking for a 100 percent mark-up on the lowest price the latex maker can afford to charge it — and that lowest price will normally not be that different from the maker’s usual direct retail price.

Effects of inflation, left-right: Inflatable Shoulders Jacket £1,245 worn with flared miniskirt; deflated Inflatable Sleeve Top £845 over Fruit Skirt £1,346 (down from £1,495); Inflatable Shell Skirt £1,775 worn with short tank top (photos: Alexis White)

These days, of course, the chances of finding a major high street fashion retailer willing to take on a small clothing range from a regular latex brand are rarer than hen’s teeth. However, for a select few latex makers, opportunities do exist to ply their craft discreetly (with NDAs usually in place) producing ‘own brand’ latex lines for a few of fashion’s mega brands.

It seems that designers/brands who set out to pitch their latex clothing as high fashion rather than as products for the regular latex market pretty much have to charge high fashion prices if they want to be taken seriously. This may be at least part of the reason a full-length latex coat by Harri will cost your £1,795 while something a bit shorter but otherwise not dissimilar can be had from Libidex for under £370.

You might think such pricing alone is proof that Harri has a sense of humour. But if you’re still not sure, we offer you the final (vidcap) image below of two of his inflatable pieces in a setting that surely does confirm it!

Harri Store
Harri instagram
Harri Facebook
Alexis White Photography

Last but not least: evidence that in certain circumstances, fashion really can be a life-saver?