Levi Palmer and Matthew Harding were fresh from a holiday at their spring 2025 preview. Their sense of R&R was palpable: it came in part from their hot summer break, and also from the fact that their business is doing well, despite the tumultuous retail landscape a lot of fashion brands are navigating right now.
Having developed their once “passive” direct-to-consumer website, they’ve learned more about the people they are designing for. The most revealing and constructive feedback has come from the chat widget on their site: “It’s very easy to forget that the clothes actually have a purpose out there in the world. If you just focus on the creativity, that’s really fun for you, but not necessarily great for people to buy into,” said Harding.
They know their customer inside-out. And they’re on the same wavelength: a recent trip to Paris revealed that a top client, the proud owner of 15 Palmer Harding shirts, is also a proud owner of three Richard Serra works––an artist that has inspired the designers’ methodology from the beginning. “When you have those relationships with your consumer, you really get to understand their point of view and their mindset. It’s exciting, it validates the work that you do,” Palmer remarked.
How does spring 2025 fit into their customer’s wardrobe? “Weekend” is a word thrown around a lot in conversation, which in the context of their lookbook was translated via separates and dresses rendered in cotton, light-wash denim and taffeta. “Our approach is very sculptural, very hands on fabric,” says Harding of the draping methods Palmer experiments with at the start of each collection.
This collection began with two semi-circles––representative of a “lover’s embrace,” inspired by their own evolving polyamorous relationship––manipulated in different ways to create new silhouettes with curved panels, their signature flounces, tied waists and fluid sleeves that trickled to the ground like waves (hence the nautical palette). “It’s not necessarily about that early, exciting kind of sexual tension,” Harding explained. “It’s this kind of almost calm realization, and almost like a knowing, in a relationship.” The epitome of their new vision was the final look: a cobalt dress with an asymmetric peplum, one of the most direct interpretations of multiple forms becoming one––kind of like Palmer, Harding and their customers.
