Before he dressed Harry Styles for the Grammys and before he made Emma Corrin wear Miu Miu knit panties to the Venice Film Festival, Harry Lambert was a British Vogue intern obsessed with fashion and looking for designer vintage in Mayfair charity stores. "When I moved to London and entered the fashion world, I didn't have the budget for all that. It wasn't my time to buy a Prada shirt, but I still wanted to arrive at the office feeling great and like I was putting in the effort," he says.


Lambert quenched his thirst for luxury fashion through charity store swag and designer-street collaborations that proliferated in the late 1990s, when Topman offered young customers garments by Caroline Massey, Meadham Kirchhoff, Christopher Kane, and JW Anderson at an affordable price. That's why the unveiling of his own capsule collection for another retail giant, Zara, represents a watershed moment for Lambert. "Very selfishly I said to myself, this is the opportunity to design for myself 15 years ago," he says. "The high street was very important for me to discover my own style."


His Cutie Chaos collection ("I was trying to think of something that would look good on a T-shirt," Lambert says of the line's name) is full of retro cuts, 70s-inspired hues, and whimsical cartoon prints. "I had an extensive moodboard of old references, including illustrations of vintage toy figurines. I found these characters to be very nostalgic but also very cute-I've been carrying around the bag [printed with an illustrated fox] for a long time. I wanted there to be a sense of fun in this collection."


Lambert is also aware of the problems inherent in street fashion and the toll the industry's overproduction has on the planet. "I wanted to make sure I was as responsible as possible," he says, which is why the 60 pieces in the Cutie Chaos collection use mainly low-impact fibers and recycled raw materials, such as recycled wool, polyester, nylon, and cotton. Lambert also paid special attention to the finishes. "The buttons are all covered, which is not normally the case in high fashion collections. The quality of each piece had to be really excellent so that people could keep it forever or sell it."


Cutie Chaos draws inspiration from the Norwich-born designer's work with his A-list clients, and Harry Styles fans will notice some pieces-the vests, the exaggerated collars-that seem tailor-made for one of pop's most celebrated dressers. "He picked out some pieces and so did Emma Corrin," Lambert confirms with a laugh. But despite the influential celebrities who ordered, Harry can't wait for the fashion-obsessed teenagers, who remind him of his younger self, to get their hands on the collection. "The first time I'm going to see Cutie Chaos around-that's the thing I'm most excited about."