“Copenhagen felt like an exciting place to create a Nina Ricci tribe”: Why Harris Reed is tapping Denmark's It girls

It’s Harris Reed’s first time in Copenhagen in a decade and he is immediately charmed. “It is the most beautiful,” says Reed, who has a habit of speaking in absolutes. He’s come at an especially attractive time for the Danish capital. No, not summer, the other one: Christmas. “I got into the hotel and I actually had the biggest grin. Copenhagen has a lot on London – it’s much more quaint where I think there’s a bit of a Hollywood vibe in London, with the glitz and glamour,” continues Reed, who was born in Los Angeles and moved to London in 2017 to study at Central Saint Martins. “Here it’s the candles and the wreaths and it feels much more bespoke and special.”

The 28-year-old creative director of Nina Ricci is sitting on a banquette at Ciccioni’s restaurant in Copenhagen’s Soho House, sipping a Coke Zero on ice (“I am so happy with a Coke,” he says, before adding, “I’m also a bit hungover”). He looks, as ever, the picture of modern glamour in a sheer black Nina Ricci shirt unbuttoned practically to the navel, slim black trousers and black patent boots. Then there’s that mane of copper hair, falling in a cascade of very Copenhagen-appropriate Little Mermaid waves. I ask if the hair is all his and he responds “mostly”.

He hasn’t come here simply to take in the glittering lights on the facade of Hotel D’Angleterre, sip Glögg at cobblestoned markets and take a lap around the skating rink at Kongens Nytorv (though there will probably be a bit of that – he and his husband intend to spend the weekend exploring the city). Rather, he’s here for Nina Ricci’s very first Copenhagen dinner, which is set to take place in a couple of hours.

At first glance, Nina Ricci, the 91-year-old Parisian house that revels in a certain bow-heavy, done-up femininity, and Copenhagen appear as odd bedfellows. But ever since Reed took the reins at the house three years ago, there’s been a distinct vibe shift. Not away from the bow-heavy, done-up femininity, mind you, but rather directly into it. “There’s so much poetry and a bit of gothicness in what I’m doing, but at the same time, there has to be a bit more celebration,” he says. “People are like, ‘Oh, it’s soft, it’s delicate’. Yeah it’s soft and delicate, but that woman is going to f*** you up – in a good way. She has her heels on, she has her polka dots, she has her bows... These things that could almost be seen as twee or quaint or sweet are actually things that I think are – excuse my language – quite c*nty and powerful and strong. So it’s reclaiming those things in a new lens.”

Related: Your complete guide to Copenhagen, according to our editors