Harry Brant is a 15-year-old fashion lover and man about town. You might know him as the son of supermodel Stephanie Seymour and publisher Peter Brant. We first met him at a Miu Miu Musing last year, wherein he and his older brother Peter (II) nearly upstaged host Andre Leon Talley. We were smitten. He’s only 15 but he knows his shit. And he’s hilarious. We asked him to regale us with his tales from last week’s couture shows (when he’s there he stays with Alaïa). Enjoy.
I launched my couture journey in the most glamour appropriate way I could think of: Dinner with Pat McGrath. We went to the uber chic Vietnamese restaurant Tong Yen (a Paris must). Firstly, I would just like to apologize to the other diners at the restaurant. Our dinner involved tears from laughter, fake engagement rings, and of course, dual personalities. It was DIVINE, like all outings with the make up goddess.
The next day I got up and went to the Versace show. I am using the term got up very loosely because I never actually went to sleep. I got a text from Pat at 5am (she’s a 5am-9pm kind of girl) inviting me to go hang out backstage at Versace. I don’t care what time of day is–if someone invites you to hang out at Versace couture backstage, you go! So at 8am I made my way to the Ecole des Beaux Arts on the Seine. Pat came outside to get me and brought me into a huge room with a giant golden stairway to “heaven” (heaven being Versace). We went backstage and Pat continued her ever glamorous make-up work. I think of her as a sculptor, because if you give the girl some eye shadow, liner, foundation, and powder, she will literally reshape your face.
Then I met the ultimate queen of glamour herself, Donatella Versace! In my opinion she is the ultimate Queen B. We talked and ended up laughing like schoolgirls (and by we, I mean me), until she was called over to deal with the show. At that moment I saw the clothes. Oh, the clothes! Honestly never in my fashion-immersed life have I seen dresses sparkle like that. In short, they were bad ass. I truly believe that these fantastic dresses cannot be captured on camera or film, because you can’t really see how intense they were. I left right before the presentation, hoping to avoid crowds, because, after all, I had already witnessed the Versace glory so there was no need to stay. The entire thing was just 100% Versace: glamourous, punk, and sexy. In this fragile world of fashion with the entire industry on eggshells about offending anyone, Donatella is just one of those people who you know holds all the cards.
The next night at the Azzedine Alaïa atelier I had an extremely interesting dinner. I have a sort of compulsive social lying problem. In this case, I was just embarrassing. I introduced myself to the woman sitting across from me, who was a buyer for an extremely large Korean department store, and asked her where she was from. She swiftly responded “Seoul,” so naturally, like any CRAZY person, I felt the need to overcompensate, and went on and on about how my best friend was Korean and how we had spent a large portion of our summer there. When she asked me when I had gone on such an escapade I simply said “the whole month of June.” Then, to my delight/dismay, she looked at me with a puzzled face and declared that she had seen my picture in Venice at the pop-up Bungalow 8 for the Biennale, an event in early June. So in a hesitant voice I said “ Oh, sorry did I say June? I meant the entire month of July.” She looked even more confused and said with a quizzical expression on her face “didn’t you just say you were here for couture?” At this point I knew I was skewered. But attempting to salvage my dignity I said “Oh yes, but it’s all very complicated,” as if the idea that I was traveling to two different places was just way too complicated for anyone to grasp. After about a five-minute silence she switched the topic to New York designers and then yachts. So of course, to overcompensate for my previous lie, I felt the need to talk about how I had been on “the most wonderful yacht on the glorious seaside of Seoul.” Did you know that Seoul is inland? I didn’t. Her and her sidekick for the evening began to give me very strange looks and said “but Seoul is not on the ocean.” So, obviously, I attempted to further cover up my lie and reluctantly whispered, “Oh, sorry did I say Seoul? I meant Pyongyang.”
Ok! I know what your thinking. Pyongyang is the North Korean capital that is 50 miles inland. But in my defense I thought that I had seen the name on a Mikimoto box so assumed it was in South Korea. Either way I became the American idiot, but I am not ashamed! For I think in the end I represented the US extremely well, with class and grace, as I did not wear one Hawaiian shirt. I’m practically a modern day Jackie O.
Peter Brant II and Harry Brant are the next big things on the New York social set. Think Paris and Nicky Hilton or Kylie and Kendall Jenner, only male, 100 times better…and gay.
The brothers, 18 and 15 respectively, are sons to billionaire publishing tycoon, Peter Brant, and supermodel Stephanie Seymour. In fact, you might even remember this incest hoo-ha from last year.
Not to worry, though. The ever-fabulous, fashionable and ridiculously dapper Peter is openly gay, and his younger brother is, well, not openly gay.
Peter II has previously described himself as a "Designer, Art Collector, Socialite and Model," but pretty well seems to spends his time flitting around the world to attend various fashion shows.
He and Harry (who we assume spends his time at Greenwich High School, where his brother graduated) have a joint Twitter account, where they post an amazing array of first-world observations about life, lunch and luxury.
So, why do you need to care?
Well, we reckon it's awesome that these two are young, unashamedly flamboyant and probably a beacon of hope for hundreds of effeminate, teenage boys.
Plus, they wear leopard-print, are adorable too boot, and they're going to be huge.
It's official, I am completely obsessed with openly gay socialite Peter Brant II and his (potentially gay) younger brother Harry. Screw Glee's Kurt Hummell, every gay teen on earth pretty much wishes they were either of these kids. They're just spectacularly amazing.
I want to write a young adult novel series based on these two called Gossip Gays about them being young and attractive and rich and just downright awesome as they flutter from St. Bart's to New York to Paris, attending all the best parties and sneaking champagne on the sly. (All lit agents out there, that is a serious pitch.) The pair are the progeny of billionaire Peter Brant Sr and supermodel Stephanie Seymour. They will one day potentially be worth worth billions on their own—if they don't spend all their money on clothes first.
We met Peter Brant II (he's way too luxe to be a "Jr") last year when pictures of him getting close to his mother on the beach surfaced. We instantly fell in love with him after he told everyone in the media they were "gross" for insinuating that he had an inappropriate relationship with his mother. At the time he described himself on his Facebook page as a "Designer, Art Collector, Socialite, and Model." He's a graduate of Greenwich High School where, I assume, his brother attends now.
Since then it seems like all he's been doing is jetting around to fashion shows with his 15-year-old brother Harry who isn't openly gay, but...well...would Stephanie Seymour have any sons who weren't gay and into fashion? If this interview in Paper magazine, which talks about Harry hosting a Fashion's Night Out party with brother Peter and fashion blogging wunderkind Tavi Gevinson, isn't enough to make you fall in love with him, check out the post he wrote for Fashionista today about his trip to the couture shows in Paris last week.
"I met the ultimate queen of glamour herself, Donatella Versace!" he writes, a sentence that no straight man could could capably muster. He goes on to talk about being seated at a dinner across from a Korean buyer and gets caught in a lie saying he spent a month in Korea last year. "At this point I knew I was skewered," he says when the buyer called him out for saying he was both in Paris and in Korea at the same time. "But attempting to salvage my dignity I said 'Oh yes, but its all very complicated,' as if the idea that I was traveling to two different places was just way too complicated for anyone to grasp. After about a five-minute silence she switched the topic to New York designers and then yachts."
Yes, only if you are Harry or Peter Brant II is your biggest problem lying at a Fashion Week dinner and having to talk about designers and yachts. What a charmed life they live: flitting from fashion show to interview, to party, to fashion show, taking breaks to post what would be obnoxious, horribly elitist observations on their joint Twitter account-if they weren't so damn adorable.
The great thing is that these two are even allowed to exist. As long as there have been rich people there have been their wastrel opffspring with their vain pursuits, access to luxury, and silly pronouncements. Look at Lydia Hearst. Little gay boys all over the world wanted to be her, because there was no rich gay boy into fashion living a fabulous life that would take them away from the sometimes painful and isolating life of being a normal gay teen anywhere else in America. This is like the gay male version of her, and they're just allowed to wear leopard print tops in public, hang out backstage at a Versace show, and wear the latest Dolce and Gabanna fashions like Little Lord Fauntleroy and his gay brother. And no one cares. No one calls them names or tears them down or tries to get them to change just until they get to college. They're just allowed to be The Brants, as if it is a brand that doesn't even know it is marketing itself.
This is progress, this is equality. Gay teens don't need Lydia Hearst anymore, because they have role models of their own. All Peter (II) and Harry have to do is keep being themselves, and keep being fabulous.
source 1, source 2, and source 3.