Harris Tapper

Harris Tapper

Harris Tapper started with a conversation in the back of a taxi about the perfect shirt. Sarah Harris Gould and Lauren Tapper met working on a retail launch in Auckland, noticed there was nothing between fast fashion and full luxury for women who needed to be taken seriously at work, and founded the label in 2017. It's a work of art for the modern day working woman

One category, done properly

The pair launched with women's shirting alone and refused to expand until customers demanded it. That patience is why the fit is the thing people talk about first: years of work with patternmakers and fabric suppliers before the range grew at all.

The shirt that started it

Shirting is still the centre of gravity. The brand's phrase for its own aesthetic is subversive femininity and sculptural minimalism, which in practice means a professional shirt with one unexpected proportion.

Dresses for the working week

Gould grew up in a household where both parents' roles at home and at work were equal, and she has said that shaped the brand's premise of championing women in their careers. The dresses are designed to serve that day, not to dictate it.

Trousers that answer to the shirt

Pants and skirts arrived because customers kept asking what to wear with the shirts. The whole range grew outward from one garment.

Skirts, sculpted

The label describes itself as a study in equilibrium between the ascetic and the voluptuous. The skirts are where that balance is most literal.

Our honest take

A brand run by two people from Auckland with no stores of their own has ended up dressing Moda's own founder. Starting with one perfect thing remains the most underrated strategy in fashion.