Harri, real name Harikrishnan Keezhathil Surendran Pillai, has a lot to celebrate, as his name made international headlines after <a href="https://www.thenationalnews.com/lifestyle/fashion-beauty/2023/02/12/brit-awards-2023-fashion-sam-smith-turns-heads-in-look-by-kerala-born-designer-harri/" target="_blank">Sam Smith dazzled on the Brit Awards 2023</a> red carpet in one of his looks. The British singer wore an all-black, custom-made latex outfit with dramatic, ballooning shoulders and trousers, plus a pair of matching high-heel boots. "What would you name this look? #michelinman," Harri wrote on his Instagram account. <b>Scroll through the gallery below to see more looks from the Brit Awards 2023</b> Smith's outfit was lauded among fashion circles, but this isn't the first time Harri has been the subject of conversation in the industry. In fact, he first went viral back in 2020, just before the pandemic hit, after he presented his London College of Fashion graduate collection that featured inflatable latex trousers that were dubbed by media as "balloon pants". It got him shortlisted for the British Fashion Council's Newgen initiative, which has previously supported the likes of <a href="https://www.thenationalnews.com/lifestyle/luxury/2022/06/13/africa-is-limitless-priya-ahluwalia-builds-on-nigerian-roots-for-springsummer-2023/" target="_blank">Priya Ahluwalia</a>. He launched his eponymous label as soon as he graduated with a master of arts in menswear in June that year, and began working between London and New Delhi. In September, Harri made his London Fashion Week debut, on the <a href="https://www.thenationalnews.com/lifestyle/luxury/2022/09/17/london-fashion-week-day-one-the-show-goes-on-despite-sombre-mood/" target="_blank">opening day of the spring/summer 2023 shows</a>. Now, he plays with larger-than-life proportions, shifting between materials and sculpture. "Building on personal yet universal themes taken from classical and surrealistic contexts, he focuses on the duality between the notion of clothing as an art and a mimetic practice," according to the London Fashion Week website. He was born in a small village in southern Kerala, where he had no exposure to fashion. “However, my dad used to do artwork for local commercials, which inspired me to sketch and visualise things from a very young age," he told <i>Vogue India</i> ahead of his London Fashion Week show. In 2012, he enrolled at the fashion school NIFT Bangalore, before assisting Indian designer Suket Dhir in New Delhi and then getting into the London College of Fashion. The balloon pants really put him on the map, but while the reception has been serious, it was humour that initially sparked the idea. "The initial idea about the trouser came from this humorous thought of visualising me from my dog's perception," he told <i>Vogue</i>. "Thinking from his point of view. 'How will he be seeing me?' 'Am I like a giant figure with big legs and a small head?' That gave me some possibilities about shapes, most of which were anatomically impossible and motivated me to look for a material that could satisfy those proportions." He chose to work with latex primarily because it's a less-polluting, plant-based alternative to leather, he added, and is much more flexible and stretchy than cow's hide or PVC. It was a unique look, one that had people such as MC Hammer reaching out to the then little-known designer, but the timing couldn't have been more perfect, he told the publication. “When I launched my collection, it was the beginning of the pandemic, and the world was sad. Yet that collection put a smile on a lot of faces. So for me, that's just the idea. Nobody cared about the material or the technicalities; all they saw was this image, and that's my style — an image-making approach to fashion."
