At an age when most are retiring, Kathy Harris is piecing her dreams together one stitch at a time. We introduced the spunky fashionista five years ago when she was crowned Greenville Fashion Week’s Emerging Designer. This month, she’s heading to Manhattan, where her köttkömm collection will appear for the first time at New York Fashion Week.
The native South Carolinian has been preparing to hit this stage since she was seven years old, learning to sew at her mother’s knee. “It’s wonderful!” the 73-year-old exclaims about her upcoming show. “It’s been quite a journey so far, and there’s still a lot to it. It’s a different level. A little more demanding, I would say. It’s the big stage.”
Harris went down a path of IT, real estate, and losing her husband before backstitching to her first love. “I was a geek gal,” she admits of her time in voice and data communications. “I entered the Emerging Designer competition on a whim. I didn’t have a line in any way prepared.”
Yet that honor was the catalyst for her atelier ambitions. She opened a store in the Village of West Greenville and recently moved to a studio setup on Williams Street. “From the inception of köttkömm, I’ve designed for the 18- to 81-year-old, and that still holds true. My clients are everywhere, but they’re not everybody. I have people who come from Atlanta to buy my dresses. But women who want a more fitted look? This is not their aesthetic.”
She’s struggling to trim a new collection of 20 pieces down to 11 for the runway in New York. “One piece has this metallic, silver polyester,” she divulges. “It’s really shiny. One thing that runs through all the garments [is] lots of circles. I always stick with black, white, and pink, and I’m throwing in a touch of yellow. Last year it was lime green, but I’ve twisted it up a little with the yellow.”
Köttkömm clients have come to crave what Harris calls her drop. “It’s a combo of a dress and top and can be worn either way, depending on what it is,” she says. And all pieces are South Carolina made, from pattern cutting in the Upstate to textile production in McBee. “You know, I’m just proud, proud as can be,” she shares. “To say I’m bringing pieces from start to finish, from creation to completion, right here in South Carolina? I think it’s fabulous.”
Never one to settle, she’s set another big goal: getting her pieces into Bergdorf Goodman, a luxury department store on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. “It will happen before I die!” she exclaims. “I’ve waited later than I should, and I let life get in the way. It’s going to happen. I’m hell-bent on it.” Just let us know which floor to visit at Bergies.
All About New York Fashion Week
- NYFW is one of the “Big Four” fashion weeks in the world, along with Paris, Milan, and London.
- Across 7–9 days each February and September, buyers, media, and the general public attend the debut of international collections.
- New York’s first Fashion Week was created in 1943, with different groups hosting shows and claiming the event over the years.
- In 1993, many shows moved under the famous white tents behind the public library in Bryant Park.
- Today, runway events are held at various locations, from Broadway to Lower Manhattan.
For more on Harris and köttkömm, visit kottkomm.com.
