Harry Nuriev – a Dreamscape

Harry Nuriev is just leaving the Acne Studios show in Paris when I reach him on the phone. He’s jumping in a cab to a fitting for his next show. His schedule is packed, and imagine dozens of colourful, overlapping rectangles in his calendar. In my head, the composition almost looks like his private patchwork pool sofa that is part of his Paris flat in the 6^th arrondissement. The multihyphenate with Russian roots is in demand. So much so that even the time during his car ride is used productively for our interview.

“These are my least favourite weeks”, Harry sighs. “Trust me, I don’t need to go to fashion shows for any inspiration. I have enough inspiration.” But where does it come from then, I ask. “The source is my fantasy which is again fed by my dreams, I dream a lot – that’s my job.” The bedroom seems to be the key to his creative epiphanies, but somehow I’m no wiser as to how he comes up with his bold ideas. Some things are better left a mystery.

“I’ve always been interested in beautiful things, but didn’t really know what I wanted to do in life until I started studying architecture”, he says. After being reassured of this field when he was assisting at a New York-based interior firm, he founded Crosby Studios in 2014, an agency that operates glob-ally handling residential but in particular public projects. Harry’s approach is always similar: transforming interiors into art-like spaces by using unconventional and extraordinary materials, surfaces and colours. “When I first started my studio, I thought about the future and different alternative realities. Many of the materials that I’m using are com-ing from what is being rejected in the industry,” he explains.

His works surely disrupted the interior industry several times and created hype. He recently generated a lot of positive press coverage for his design concept for the newly opened Silencio club in New York, which is inspired by the original David Lynch-envisioned Parisian nightclub. In LA he produced an installation for The Frankie Shop and in Paris, he created a pop-up for the Berlin-based jewellery label Avgvst – both spaces covered in his signature chrome aesthetic.

“Some people say I set trends, I am not sure about that,” he says, while his intonation of the word “trends” stresses how much he despises the term. Harry rather likes to challenge himself by constantly finding new and unexpected materials to play with, rather than forecasting any potential fads. The use of unconventional materials is not the only criterion, he also prioritises sustainable materials in his procurement process.

Balenciaga jacket

Harry researches extensively, contacts individual suppliers and con-siders which items he could re-use from previous projects. The mirror in his private apartment is made from old keyboards, his desk and office chair are made from cardboard boxes and he used old computer monitors for The Frankie Shop installation in LA. Harry takes a relaxed approach to copies and imitations of his work. “It means that people care, that they feel inspired and they reinterpret it in their way. It’s not necessarily a bad thing,” he says.

The architect and furniture designer describes his multi-disciplinary approach to his projects as a “gentle collaborative exchange” with his cli-ents. “It’s usually very creative and successful people approaching me to do a project for them and I enjoy the ex-change a lot because it is most-y people that I find inspiring as well.” His spatial transformations are often radical which makes me want to know whether it’s challenging at times to convince a client of a particular vision. This supposed problem does not arise in this way, he says. “The client is always properly onboarded and we are having sequenced meetings dis-cussing the different stages of the project.”

He remains tight-lipped, even mysterious, about the ex-act processes of his project management and only lets me know that he still works with paper and pen rather than a computer. “First feelings, and immediate reactions play a role as well as adding personal references from what I experience in life.”

I resolve not to demystify his work any further and therefore ask him what his favourite rooms are to work with. “I treat each room differently, but overall they are all important,” he says. “Ultimately, it’s about paying attention to the functional features of each room, but never losing sight of the big picture.” While his futuristic spaces make us dream, Harry is less interested in facilitating an escape from reality for the viewer but rather wants people to be present in the moment. “I like to bring them back to the good part of reality,” he says – a wonderful way to have us re-focus on the analogue world which these days seems so inextricable from the digital world.

The car stops and he gets out for his fitting, so it’s time for one last question. A PR takes off his coat and he sits down for a moment of pause. “Whose apartment would you like to take a peek at if you could?” I ask, before he plunges into the expensive tex-tiles of the next label. “I would love to see Coco Chanel’s apartment – that would be lovely, but pretty unlikely to happen,” he chuckles.