In the spring of 2020, Sam Harper would start every day the same way, lugging a box of fresh white sweatpants and sweatshirts into the basement of her childhood home. She would hand-dye every piece until the sink turned green. Then, she’d scrub it out with bleach and start again. The daily ritual was more than just a pastime for the 23-year-old designer. In the past three years, Harper, a Drexel University senior, has gone viral for her signature tie-dye sweatsuits from the brand she created, Harper Collective.
Now, she’s just three months away from college graduation and already designing the clothes for some of your favorite style stars. Her most popular pieces have been sported by Kylie Jenner, Emma Chamberlain, Addison Rae, and Charlotte D'Alessio in a January 2023 issue of Galore.
Harper grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, as one of three “Harper Triplets.” She found her love of fashion early, stealing copies of Essence and Vogue magazines from her father’s dental office and memorizing the names of designers for her own personal catalog. At 6 years old, Harper declared to her parents that she wanted to be a fashion designer, so they drove her to Jo-Anne Fabrics the next day for her first summer sewing class. “I bought the Shake It Up patterns, so I could remake Zendaya’s clothes,” Harper tells Teen Vogue.
Fifteen years later, their daughter would start her own business and launch her first collection, Sweats By Sam, during the COVID-19 pandemic. She designed, detailed, and packaged each piece from the loungewear line in the comfort of her home. She recalls long, tedious days of dyeing. While she sent off marketing emails and brand partnerships to influencers, she was also making calls to a military patch maker in Wisconsin who shipped the supplies for the custom name tags that embellished her pieces. “I was so tired, and I would take 12 trips back and forth between home and the postal service,” Harper says. “I did not see the sun. I was in Zoom class, dyeing 1,000 things and trying to look at the monitor.”
As orders continued to roll in, Harper wondered what her design capacity could look like beyond her sweats line. She sought out ways to expand her creative reach, starting with her senior thesis. Initially, she wanted to do a line inspired by mental health and finding centeredness and comfort through fashion. The idea was still along the lines of athleisure and comfort that she had grown accustomed to but offered an opportunity to dive into concepts like astrology, angel numbers and auras which had taken over her social media feed.
Though she went in a different direction for her thesis, Harper transformed the concept into her second collection, Aura. With the guidance of Radiant Human founder Christina Lonsdale, she researched and crafted a quiz that could identify a customer’s aura and customize the item they could purchase. She shared that the concept took two whole years to develop.
“I wanted something to be more interactive, and I felt like we're heading in a more meaningful direction post-pandemic. I wanted it to actually work and have meaning, so I just kept sending it to my mom, and I was like, ‘try to see if you can get a different color.’”
Her actual senior thesis project, A Journey into Afro-Surrealism, a line made primarily out of durags sourced from Harper’s local beauty store, is what inspired her newest collection, Superbloom. “I was like, ‘you know what, let's be like really Black and kind of campy,” she said. “I was like well aware of everyone looking at me when I laid them all out on a table and unpackaged them, so I wanted to make something special.”
With Superbloom about to drop, she’s ready to bring a new, whimsical addition to the 2023 fashion scene. The puff flower that has become a signature staple for the young designer was actually the aftermath of a design mistake in her thesis brainstorming. Experimenting with a variety of fabrics, Harper tried to shape a unique floral design to accent her pieces. After a handful of trial runs, she settled on a piece of sheer fabric and adapted her first Superbloom floral, which she would later adhere to gloves, gowns, corsets and bags in her Spring/Summer 2023 collection.
Sam Harper's work pays homage to the most prominent trends in fashion, combining the flirty, bright color palette of the early 2000s with the sheer silhouettes that dominated runways in early 2023. She uses a pre-order process for all designs to eliminate waste. The brand will begin accepting pre-orders for custom pieces on February 28. In addition to her Superbloom line, the designer is planning to release a handbag collaboration in the summer of 2023 and is developing a swim line.
Harper also has big dreams for her brand beyond projects. When asked who she would love to see in her pieces in the upcoming year, Harper mentioned stars like Rosalía, Sabrina Carpenter, Sabrina Claudio and her number-one pick Naomi Campbell.
While Harper continues to see these aspirations to fruition, she offers advice to others as well. “I made this in my college apartment, sewed on the floor and sourced patches from like the Navy," she says. "Don't be afraid to present yourself, and I truly feel like you can sell anything. You're selling an experience, and I just feel like there's space for everyone.”
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