As a queer designer, Christopher Reid looks to their obsessions with horror and folklore to confront the binaries that persist within fashion in a subversive manner.

Rooted in their darkened bedroom world of horror films, gothic romance novels and Courtney Love, they pull in research stemming from their Scottish hometown’s summer pageant of crowing one girl to be the “Marymass” queen, in honour of Mary Queen of Scots in a floral procession. With the amalgamation of these thematic touchpoints, their work acts as a love letter to the women and films they grew up idolising and also a combative rejection of the psychosexual aspects of masculinity. They reject the binary presented in the historical imagery and garments to instead embrace a representation which sits in the subversive notion of dichotomy and duality; “I can be both the nightgown clad siren and the axe-wielding murderess of my world all at the same time.”

Christopher Reid graduated from Edinburgh College of Art as part of the class of 2020, however due to the outbreak of COVID-19 had to prematurely finish their final year. This led them to utilise the collection of vintage fabric, ribbons and lace that was to be used in the production of their graduate work, to be used instead for sustainably made and historically inspired corsets. With every piece being made to order for each individual customer, Reid wants this to act as the foundation of their brand’s ethos to support all genders and sizes, with inclusivity and the appreciation of sustainably minded craft at the forefront.