With Ponte, Harry Pontefract Is Turning Upcycled Objects Into Exquisite Clothing

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The British designer Harry Pontefract’s clothing often starts with a very specific obsession. Last year, for example, his fixation with vintage faux fruit led him on a six-month search for plastic grapes, which he incorporated into his latest collection in the form of a sleeveless dress hand-embroidered with cascading bunches of them in shades of black and deep Bordeaux. He describes the aesthetic of the piece as “cheap opulence.” Several garments — including a slim-fitting, hand-sewn corset dress that pools below the ankles and a cloudlike matching stole — consist of longhaired sheepskins, which he selected from the flocks of two female shepherds in Wales and England’s Peak District. One of the animals, he says, was named Dilys. “It’s really about if something moves me or about bringing things into a new light,” says Pontefract, 36. He admits, however, that “everyone’s been sort of calling me crazy.”

A native of Sheffield, Pontefract now lives and works in an old shoe factory in East London’s Hackney neighborhood. He began collecting unusual materials — “hoarding,” he says — as a child, and the attic and basement of his parents’ home are still crammed with boxes of his accumulated treasures. As a teen, he and his friends would customize their jeans using his mother’s sewing machine, a hobby that became a vocation when he enrolled in the fashion design program at London’s Central Saint Martins. His 2016 graduate collection featured deconstructed underpinnings — upcycled bras and silk negligees — that slipped suggestively off the body and were styled with layers of skin-colored tights. Post-graduation, during his six-year stint on the design team at the fashion house Loewe in Paris, he continued to experiment with his one-off creations on the side before formally launching Ponte, which is sold exclusively at Dover Street Market, two years ago.