Stephanie Seymour pays homage to late son Harry Brant by modeling his clothes
Stephanie Seymour‘s greatest fashion muse is her late son, Harry Brant.
The veteran supermodel recently opened up to the Wall Street Journal about loss and healing in her first interview since the death of her youngest son with businessman and publisher Peter Brant.
Harry Brant, a rising model and socialite who frequented New York’s art and style scenes, died in January 2021 after struggling with addiction and accidentally overdosing on prescription drugs. He was 24.
“If I think that Harry would love something, I do it, and it does help me with my grief,” Seymour told the Journal.
Harry Brant, son of supermodel Stephanie Seymour and businessman Peter Brant, has died of a prescription drug overdose. He was 24.
One way Seymour has been able to cope with the loss of her son is by wearing his favorite outfits. Inheriting his mother’s passion for style, Brant often sat front row at fashion shows and dabbled in modeling for major brands such as Balmain and Italian Vogue.
“It still feels so good to put his clothes on,” Seymour said. She expressed a desire to carry on her son’s legacy by modeling his wardrobe because “he would love it” and “there’s a whole flock of women that would love to wear his clothes and be photographed.”
During a black-and-white photo shoot for the Journal, Seymour modeled her son’s cherished Saint Laurent by Hedi Slimane suit. In one of the photos, Seymour wears the pants and clutches the jacket to her chest. Facing the camera is her bare back, which has her son’s first name painted on it — Seymour’s idea.
Tatjana Patitz modeled alongside Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista and others in the 1980s. She died of metastatic breast cancer at age 56.
“It’s a suit that I keep hanging in my dressing room, which is this big room where I keep all my stuff. I do my makeup there. I live in that room,” Seymour said. “I looked at that suit one night and I said, ‘I’m going to put it on.’ It fit me.”
According to Seymour, Harry Brant began influencing his mother’s fashion choices from a young age. The elementary school fashionista would search his mother’s closet and find clothes for her to wear to parent-teacher conferences, Seymour recalled.
“I would say, ‘OK, you can choose my outfit,’ and then he would go through everything, the vintage, the everything, lay it all on the floor,” she said. “I’d say, ‘Harry, I can’t wear a vintage couture dress to a parent-teacher conference,’ ... and he’d say, ‘Why not?’”
Fashion wouldn’t be anything without the narrative threads that make the work.
Shortly after Harry‘s death, his family released a statement remembering him as “a creative, loving and powerful soul that brought light into so many people’s hearts.” He is survived by his parents and three siblings: Lilly Margaret Brant, 18; Peter Brant, 29; and Dylan Thomas Andrews, 33, who just named his first son after his late brother.
“Our hearts are shattered. Harry wanted to overcome his addiction and was just days away from re-entering rehab,” the family statement read.
“Harry was not just our son, he was also a wonderful brother, loving grandson, favorite uncle and a caring friend. ... He was truly a beautiful person inside and out.”
Times editorial library director Cary Schneider contributed to this report.
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