Sew Connected! From Hemophilia Advocate to Fashion Innovator
BY RENAE BAKER AND SHELLY FISHER
Some people turn to music, meditation or other ways to manage their pain. Christian Harris creates garments. “Going through the process of making garments allows me to focus. It’s a form of meditation for me.” Christian’s living room has no couch, but it does have six sewing machines! This might seem odd to some people, but it’s a natural fit for Harris.
“One of the coolest people in my family, who is gifted, charismatic, and charming, is my Uncle,” says Harris. Growing up, Christian admired his Uncle John’s creativity and ability to draw. “He would draw (clothing) designs, have them made, and then have fashion shows. It was always a big event.” Christian smiles as he remembers watching the VHS tapes of his mother and other relatives modeling Uncle John’s designs.
Today, Christian Harris is a fashion-industry pro, who has worked with cutting-edge names and brands, internationally, and whose work has been featured by WWD, Elle and Esquire. But Christian’s aim is not to shine a light on himself and his work as much as to help others realize their creative goals, reconnecting them to their love for this glamorous, often disappointing industry.
Christian grew up in the Baltimore, Maryland area. His most-keen interests were history, geometry and art. For someone with hemophilia B, those interests served him well. His diagnosis came after a routine procedure when he was born. There had been no family history of the bleeding disorder. As a child, he frequently missed school and spent a lot of time in the ER at John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. Maryland didn’t have its own camp for kids with bleeding disorders, but Harris credits Emma Miller, the Executive Director of the Hemophilia Foundation of Maryland, who flew Christian and several other kids to Camp Freedom in Tennessee. It was at Camp Freedom that Christian began learning about leadership and where he would take on the responsibility of running an art program for years.
An active member of The Coalition for Hemophilia B, Christian has participated in every leadership module of Generation IX and has served as a role model and mentor at CHB’s Symposium. COO, Kim Phelan, considers Harris a Coalition treasure. “Christian exudes a lovable warmth,” she bubbles. “He’s approachable and so talented. He’s a wonderful role model to teens and an inspiration to all of us!”
When asked what his friends would say is a strength for him, he said he thought that they might say he is “reliable and easy to talk to,” and the one they might call first to get things done. Christian smiled broadly when I asked if anyone had been especially supportive and meaningful to him. “Mom is definitely number one, but beyond her, a whole world and universe of people.”
When asked what advice he would give to someone who had just been diagnosed, he offered, “Step one, breathe; it will be okay. Hemophilia is not an easy thing to live with. At the same time, it is not something that needs to hold you back. It does come with the added burden of responsibility, but if you are able to get to the point where you can live up to that responsibility, or you’re able to help your child live up to that responsibility, it begins to open things for you that you wouldn’t have otherwise been aware of.” He went on to give examples such as understanding the importance of healthcare and being a resource for others going through a medical issue. Christian added, “If you’re willing to walk on that path, it can help you create a life that you, one, didn’t plan, but two, still enjoy. I’m thankful for how my life has evolved, and hemophilia is such a big part of that.”
After earning an undergraduate degree from American Intercontinental University, Christian went on to receive an MFA in Fashion Design. Although the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) set Christian up beautifully to succeed, his first months there made him question if whether he’d ever find his bearings. “It was rough,” he discloses. “When I first started at SCAD, I was uninsured, because I was just stupid and wanted to do my education instead of prioritizing insurance.
So, I ended up doing a clinical trial. That’s how I got my medication through grad school. The problem was, I was also without a car at the time, so I was on the bus hauling ninety days’ worth of factor, while I was working and trying to get my footing at SCAD.”
Christian could see that his professors, not knowing his situation, thought he was uncommitted. “They didn’t realize that I was having thirteen vials of blood drawn while I’m also trying to pull an all-nighter and get things done. “But halfway through this program, the clouds lifted, and “Christian L. Harris, Fashion Designer,” began to emerge! Although his hemophilia impeded his progress in the beginning, it provided the inspiration to his crowning achievement at SCAD, and his “God Save the Prince” MFA thesis collection hit the runway.
That prince is Prince Alexei of the House of Romanov. Christian’s love of history, art and geometry, underpinned by his firsthand knowledge and experience with the needs and discomforts hemophilia imposes on the body, wove together to create this artistic, dramatic playground of apparel. To view it and read the accompanying history behind Harris’s inspiration, go to christianlharris.com/godsavetheprince.
On the importance of fashion, Christian ponders, “A photographer from the New York Times, Bill Cunningham, says that fashion is the armor we put on to survive everyday life. For me, personally, being a large, black man in fashion, I’m interested in exploring and using how I dress as a tool to disarm people; to change their perception of who I might be.”
“I look at myself as a large canvas that I get to paint however I choose.” He enjoys robbing people of the opportunity to assign their ideas onto him. “It’s difficult for others to project their ideas onto someone who’s wearing something that looks like it’s half-inspired by Japanese garments, but then it’s an African print, and the guy wearing it kind of looks like John Coffee from The Green Mile,” he’s smiling like the Cheshire Cat, and adds, “No one looks at me and automatically thinks I can create beautiful evening gowns!”
“(Fashion) does arm and protect me, because sometimes what I have to protect myself from is what people expect of me.”
Currently, Christian is a 3-D leader of global development standards at Nike, which means he is a principle technical designer. He helps the company realize market-driven designs by working with designers, creating the garment patterns, determining the specifications the factory will need to sew them and managing the sometimes laboriously repetitive approval process before putting them in the hands of the factory. It’s his job to make sure the garment meets the designers’ and product managers’ intentions, that the factory will be able to sew it, and that it’ll come out on the other end as something solid.
One of the ways they “shorthand” that process is to use 3-D technology. “We’ll make a pattern, put it in 3-D on a computer and first approve it there. “That way, the factory doesn’t have to cut and sew it and send it back and forth. We can do that digitally.”
Christian relates that this technology has been around for ten to fifteen years, but that computers are not yet able to capture the fundamentally amazing concept of cloth.
“We’ve been weaving cloth for thousands upon thousands of years. There’s a reason a technology like cloth is still in our lives today. It’s dynamic and amazing and just beyond what computers are able to capture. Even the best computer systems today still can’t one- hundred percent-accurately replicate a fabric. So the technology is continuing to expand and try to catch up with the complexity that is garment-making and textile science.”
Christian equates textiles with the science of cooking. “It’s something we continue to use and evolve, but it’s not going anywhere.”
“Right now, I’m delving deeper and deeper into the apparel industry, and my aim is not necessarily to be a creative force, myself, but I want to help others who are in this industry stay connected to what they love. It’s really easy, when you want to do something creative, for the corporate side to rip away so much of why you loved it in the first place.
“Using digital tools excites me, because it gives me new opportunities to help people stay connected to what they fell in love within the fashion industry in the first place. To do that, I participate in conferences, panels, workshops and discussions to help streamline 3-D development and take it further.
“I like to work with the software engineers who code the software to help them understand, because they usually assume there is no need for them to know much about fashion. Once you break it down for them and explain how garments are engineered, it lights a different kind of fire with them in figuring it out!”
Christian tells a story that tickles him, “I had my engineers playing with different skirts that I’d made on a half-scale doll-like forms so they could understand how the fabric would drape and how changing the construction of something changes how it hangs. That was an effective tool to help them understand garment complexity in engineering. I love being able to connect people with information that’s going to be able to help them do their job better, enjoy their work and make the apparel industry better.”
As for his own creative expression, he tries to inject it into all of his projects. He is a patient ambassador for Medexus and Xinity. “Right now, we’re doing this project with the (bleeding disorders) community where we’ve asked people what it means to be themselves. They decorate a “B” to reflect that. Then we scan the pages of colored “B’s” and make a print,”
“I’m always excited about what I might see and who I might be on the other side of creating something new. Being myself is making new discoveries every day.”
Christian’s travel destinations always revolve around fashion, art, and history for him.
While visiting Shanghai, he made sure to shop for silks and included art and history museums in his itineraries. He also shared that one of his favorite ways to remember a place he’s visited is to purchase fabric from the destination and create clothing for himself as a souvenir. The one place he would like to visit the most is the Balenciaga Museum in Spain. When asked why, he shared, “Balenciaga is the greatest courtierian who ever lived, and his work is so next level that I get emotional.”
Christian shared “If you had told me I would be where I am now five years ago, I wouldn’t have believed it, so I hope I feel that same way five years from now.” Less concerned with a defined path, Christian was more interested in the “next discovery” and continuing to grow as a person. I can almost hear his chosen theme song, “I Will Get There,” by Boyz to Men playing in the background, and I believe him with all my heart.