Harris Reed’s party trick is to perform Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies” dance. He learned it – and perfected it – in his youth, and doesn’t care if it can be considered fundamental now. The song, like all of Queen B’s work, hits home. “As a young queer child who came out in a fairly conservative environment, this is the music I played on the bus to school, when I was alone in the playground and I was eating my lunch by myself, dreaming of more of a sparkling, romantic and fabulous world,” Reed says.

Her deep connection to the spirit of Beyhive reached new heights when vogue‘s Edward Enninful called the designer and asked if he could do a bespoke look – and edition of kids club sewing accessories – for Ms. Carter to wear on her July cover shoot. “I was literally speechless,” Reed continues. “She means so much to me and my heart.”

Enninful, it turns out, had bookmarked Reed’s standout look 60 years a queen collection, inspired by Sir Herbert Maxwell’s book of the same name, in February at the London-based designer’s biggest show to date (watch the emotionally devastating videos of Sam Smith singing Des’Ree’s “I’m Kissing You” proof ). Nonbinary fashion’s royal-queer-disco fusion resonated with something that had seeped into Enninful’s mind for Beyoncé, and when Team Carter’s retro-futuristic credentials aligned with her own vision, he knew Reed was the designer for the job.

Who else could create a remarkable spherical headdress for Bey to wear astride a horse? Or monster rigs to spin a motorcycle? “I got into fashion because I was obsessed with performance, alter ego and being an upgraded version of the best version of yourself,” Harris thinks of the stylistic parallels between his own work and that of the pop powerhouse he idolizes.

The peacock feathers used to shape Beyoncé’s dramatic headpiece, in fact, were leftovers from the fantastical headpiece Reed painstakingly crafted for Iman to wear at the 2021 Met Gala. He bleached, dyed and then hand-painted each plume. of a vibrant white color during a 300-hour process that required him and his milliner Vivienne Lake to attach them to a metal frame hand-wrapped in silk thread. “Hats are a looping moment because they’re how I started my career,” Reed explains. “The white hat, to me, is opulence. I wanted people to look up to me and give me the space that is so well deserved.