Searching for Fashion's

Somewhere in Brighton, a mysterious man named Paul Harnden is making handcrafted leather shoes and clothing using old-world techniques. And he has garnered a cult following that includes fashion die-hards and a few A-list celebrities who get it. As the fashion industry attempts to become more sustainable, it might learn a thing or two from Harnden's slow approach. That is, if he can be found.

- LOU STOPPARD

ABOUT EIGHT YEARS AGO, the actor Jeremy Strong, who plays Kendall Roy in Succession and who is known for his esoteric, romantic tastes in clothes, found himself in Brighton, a seaside town on the south coast of England. Brighton happens to be home to the secretive shoemaker and fashion designer Paul Harnden, whose vintage-looking, vaguely Dickensian pieces are made by some of England's oldest mills, in traditional tweeds, or silks or sturdy Ventile. Strong decided to use the occasion to track Harnden down. He tried an LLC address, tried Google Earth. He did everything he could, he told me, "in the hopes of getting a pair of coveted P.H. boots, but to no avail”. Harnden was undiscoverable. "The trail went cold. A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma, made with extreme care and artistry," Strong said.

To Strong, this only added to the appeal. "He is reclusive, un-self-seeking, and committed to the work exclusively-those values, to me, seem immanent within the garments," he said of Harnden, who is » known for being intensely specific and controlled. He sells to only a handful of stores, usually no more than one or two in each city. He rarely changes his shapes. He insists that his clothing not be discounted or put on sale, never loaned for photo shoots, never sold online. "He is doing something that is almost the exact opposite of what Walter Benjamin termed 'Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," Strong said, citing the theory that replication can undermine an object's "aura". He called what Harnden does "ineffable and real”, noting that in "a world of increasing noise”, he is trying to create his own, clear sound. "Someone who does that, in any field, is as rare as a snow leopard these days and as vital," Strong said.