Harris Tapper founders Sarah Harris Gould and Lauren Tapper aren’t quite sure how it happened, but New York makes up 10% of their New Zealand-based brand’s overall sales.
Built to fit into the modern woman’s daily life — from work, to school drop-off, to dinner and drinks — Harris Tapper’s pieces are a play on everyday basics, with an edge and flare meant to stand out, rather than seamlessly blend. “Our core pillar is easy elegance. Our pieces, there’s something special and unique about them, but it’s still a shirt. You need those things to carry you through the day,” Tapper says.
The mysterious New York boom is a rare gap in the pair’s intricate knowledge of every small detail of their brand mechanisms. From the brand’s launch, each move has been informed by data, metrics, and margins. “Every decision we make, from a business perspective, product, operational, it’s all very considered and thought out,” Harris Gould says. “We’re not spontaneous decision-makers,” Tapper agrees.
The brand’s New York breakthrough, though, has left the design duo with more questions than answers, unable to attribute the influx to a single article or channel push. It is, they conclude, down to word-of-mouth. “We have had people say, ‘Every time I wear this, five people stop me in the street and ask,’ which is so nice because, especially in such an ad-heavy, tech world, good product still speaks for itself,” Tapper says. “And sometimes, it doesn’t need to be the most ostentatious thing — it can just be a really beautiful pant.” It’s already well-loved by Vogue editors from Australia to New York.
This 10% sales mark was the confirmation Harris Gould and Tapper needed to get started on their move across the Atlantic, which they had begun exploring one year ago with a first trip to New York to test the waters. US expansion was always the plan, the founders note; it just came about faster than expected. This week, the brand is officially launching in the US, via an exclusive with Moda Operandi and the launch of an owned US website.
Photo: Holly Burgess
“We instantly saw the potential in Harris Tapper’s fresh take on wardrobing for the US client,” says Marc Rofsky, Moda Operandi’s VP of ready-to-wear. “It has that perfect blend of femininity and confidence that New York women love, and feels like a new form of power dressing.” Moda Operandi has been in talks with Harris Tapper for years, Rofsky says. “We wanted to respect their deliberate pace, so we waited until they felt ready for the American market. But when several of our most influential clients started buzzing about the brand at a Moda event last year, we knew interest had spread to NY. It affirmed that the timing was perfect.”
