Fromental x Harris Reed: An Argument for Abundance

There is a particular species of creative alchemy that occurs when worlds collide in the most exquisite confluence. It was in his first London home that Harris Reed, the British-American designer redefining contemporary couture, began considering not hemlines but walls, alongside Tim Butcher and Lizzie Deshayes, co-founders of Fromental. 

“I saw the power and creative impact of wallpaper,” he recalls, “bold expression doesn’t demand a sprawling property — it can live in an accent wall, or a powder room you never want to leave.” It is, as Butcher observes with the thoughtful precision that characterises his approach, about allowing “your imagination to be the world you inhabit. Interior decoration is the scaffolding of self-expression.” 

What began with three bespoke designs for Reed's own home has evolved into something more ambitious still: a collection of wallcoverings and accessories that oscillates between fashion and interior couture.  

Originally conceived for the designer’s bedroom, Wilde Dreams crossed into fashion on his September 2025 runway, with trailing botanicals, swallows and bumble bees reimagined on silk organza. The design has since graced Parisian balls and now returns, gloriously, to wallpaper form for this collection. 

"It's such a personal motif for me because it's what I sleep in," Reed reflects, his voice softening at the thought. "Literally, mine and my husband’s safe cocoon. Being able to project that onto a runway seen by millions of people — it was wonderful to share a bit of my intimacy with the world."

This fluidity between public and private, between fashion and interiors, is not mere happenstance. Deshayes, whose knowledge of decorative arts history is as encyclopaedic as it is impassioned, places the collaboration within a continuum. "We had moments in the 1920s, in the 1960s, where there was this deeply entwined relationship between interiors and fashion," she notes, citing the illustrations for Paul Poiret and Jeanne Lanvin, the way Yves Saint Laurent treated embroidery and pattern as a shared language across disciplines. "This is a dream come true because it is something that I wholly believe — interiors and fashion celebrated equally and working together." 

This triumvirate is united by a conviction that beauty is not frivolous but foundational. It is less an escape than a point of arrival. “I'm obsessed with the intimacy of the domestic interior and the sensual, emotional response interiors can evoke — in much the same way as clothing”, Deshayes concludes.  

The magic of their collaboration lies in the distinct yet complementary roles each brings. Reed describes himself as “a kite that needs holding on to” — “but not so tight that I can’t catch wind”,he quips. Butcher, meanwhile, returns to the origins of his own practice as a weaver, bringing disparate ideas into material reality. Deshayes, self-appointed as both library and paintbrush, grounds the work in visual history and material intelligence, ensuring that imagination is given form without losing coherence or soul. "Lizzie is a double Virgo," Reed interjects with delighted emphasis. "That's all we need to say!” 

Spanning hand-painted chinoiseries, iridescent tiger print, stylised plumage, and hand-embroidered botanicals, the five designs cohere with the same multifaceted unity seen in a fashion couture collection. "When you experience a really good a runway, it's not one idea, one technique, but it is a whole," Butcher explains. "Within a whole collection, there are layers and ideas that are seemingly different, but have the same DNA.” 

That DNA is, perhaps, best articulated as character — a word that surfaces repeatedly in this conversation. Character in the sense of integrity, of a distinctive way of being in the world. “Some [designs] are printed and glazed, and some are gilded with faux goldleaf. I love that they sit beautifully together. I have them both in the same room in my home — the juxtaposition heightens the sense of fabulousness.” 

This is the ultimate mélange — Reed's favourite French word, deployed with increasing frequency and affection — a mixing and layering that creates not cacophony but symphony. "It is the mélange that gives you the whole vision," he insists.  

The collection extends beyond wallcoverings to encompass cushions and throws in sumptuous velvets. "We have a velvet problem," Butcher confesses with mock gravity. "Withalmost everynew idea, we ask, 'But what can we do with velvet?” In this collection, the accessories allow for that layering and embellishment of space that Reed finds essential. That both a maximalist tiger-print wallcovering and its sumptuous velvet counterpart sit side by side is certainly no accident.

Among the designs, Rays of Plumeria — an exuberant celebration of feathered forms — warrants particular attention. Birds and feathers have been a recurring theme throughout the brand’s respective collections over the years — as emblems of movement, transformation, and aspiration. For Reed, they speak to a lifelong affinity with “taking flight”, both literally and figuratively, from one state of being to another. “There’s nothing more beautiful or majestic than a bird,” he reflects, noting how their very existence is defined by motion, migration, and freedom. 

Whether installed across a ceiling or behind a bed, these motifs act as quiet prompts: reminders, as he puts it, that “you can take that extra leap in life… that extra journey you might not have thought you could take.”  

Deshayes approaches the subject with her characteristic blend of aesthetic conviction and philosophical inquiry. "Feathers and fur — they're nature's own ornaments. They are the most perfect expression of that animal." 

This is the language of people for whom design is not simply a profession but a vocation, a calling towards something ineffable. “We need delight. We need awe!” pronounces Deshayes, considering the collection’s range of colourways, finishes and designs. “When the sun hits in a different way or when light reflects off the water running down your window onto the gold leaf on your walls — I mean, it's delightful." 

Butcher articulates what might well be their manifesto: "Nothing less than all is enough." 

This collection is an argument for abundance. The meaningful abundance of layered expression, of surfaces that repay sustained attention, of rooms that become, in Reed's words, places "you never want to leave." 

It is also — and this cannot be overstated — deeply personal. From Reed's first tentative steps as a homeowner to his evolving vision for interior couture, from his partnership with Fromental across multiple runway collections to this inaugural wallcoverings collaboration, the through-line is intimacy. The genuine intimacy of vulnerability, of inviting the world into one's dreams. 

"Defining yourself through your space is something I find really interesting," Reed muses. "As a fashion designer, if I'm building a world for the Met Gala or for the red carpet, it's about embodying someone's personality or facet of their personality in that moment. What I find beautiful about wallpaper is the way it changes with light, with furniture; a space is dressed much as a body is.” 

In the end — or rather, in the beginning, for this is really the opening chapter — the Fromental x Harris Reed collaboration offers something increasingly rare in our algorithmically-optimised world: permission. Permission to dream extravagantly. Permission to layer and mix and juxtapose. Permission to see beauty as necessity. 

What Reed and Fromental offer, ultimately, is the chance to inhabit the fantasy itself.