Many of us have had wild or lucid dreams this year. No matter how we navigate the day, our subconscious has a mind of its own.
When Gabriela Hearst was hunkering down in her West Village townhouse in March, while half her family — including her husband and one of their
three children — were bedridden with Covid-19, she enjoyed regular visits from her late grandmother in her sleep.
“I dreamt I was knotting a dress across her back,” the 43-year-old designer says over a videoconference call from her studio near the High Line. “Those knots are what you’re going to see at our first Paris show — one of the most complex collections we have done. I see it as an expression of the world’s collective insanity.”
This weekend’s debut Paris presentation — one of about 20 shows that will take place in front of a live audience at Fashion Week — sees Hearst developing some of the craft-heavy macramé techniques she explored last season.
The Uruguayan-born designer has consistently focused on luxury that relies on time and complexity, and uses mostly recycled textiles. It is part of a distinctive aesthetic of svelte turtlenecks, trenches and refreshed ’70s tailoring that appeals to modern-day Annie Halls of both genders.
Her technique and fabrication are fascinating, but the decision to show in Paris rather than her base in New York this year is equally significant. That, and the fact that there’s any kind of collection to show at all. “I hope we come back to New York next year,” she says. “But I needed a new goal and challenge. And Paris made things seamless.”
Logistics aside, Hearst says she has always seen Paris as a dream destination for her brand. And at a time when businesses need to head for high ground to survive, Paris equals haute. The city’s gain was a major loss for New York in a season already missing Marc Jacobs, Oscar de la Renta and Ralph Lauren.
Like the soft power-dressing of classic Jil Sander or Hermès — or indeed Halston at the peak of his powers in 1970s New York — Hearst hones low-key styling, comfort and luxury, season after season, for a loyal customer base.
This season’s suede knee boots and blazers, fringed silk dresses and £2,000 wide-leg cashmere-corduroy trousers demonstrate how her Uruguayan heritage and equestrian obsessions bring gaucho panache to the mix. It is sophisticated, clever and authentic.
When we saw the Prada logo on a prosaic pair of white Adidas Superstar trainers for £400 this summer, the most generous interpretation was that it was a nod to Duchamp. But it was also an undistilled expression of fashion as product. Hearst sees herself as the antithesis. “The only time we put my name on a T-shirt was for Joe Biden’s campaign,” she says. “I believe in branding by quality, by stitching. I don’t believe in trends or logos.”
Hearst’s medium-sized company — revenue was close to $24m in 2019 — has been nimble in a year that’s broken the back of many. “We expected sales of the recent resort collection to be down 50 per cent this year,” she says. “It actually performed at the same level as last year. As did wholesale overall.” That said, she expects to see a hit of about 8 per cent in revenue for 2020. But in a year when luxury sales are forecast to plummet by a third, and private equity groups are hoovering up the ashes of Barneys and Brooks Brothers, that’s pretty good.
It’s not just agility that has helped Hearst do more than survive. In January 2019, LVMH took a minority stake in her brand. The sum remains undisclosed, but LVMH Luxury Ventures says it typically invests between €2m and €15m per deal, and seeks shareholdings of between 5 and 25 per cent.
Born Gabriela Perezutti, now a Hearst by marriage, the designer is one of the most dynamic names embedded in New York fashion. She isn’t trading on a weathered idea of a downtown counterculture that has long gone; there are no Keith Haring graphics or shops that repurpose venues in which Patti Smith once played.
She is contemporary to the core. LVMH knows it. The exclusivity and allure of Hearst’s bags — including editions of the “Nina”, named in tribute to Nina Simone — elevated her quickly into the same luxury category as houses with over a century of provenance.
“We are still growing organically,” she says. “It’s not about selling out or blowing up the business. It’s about knowhow. When we opened [a store] in London, we didn’t have an HR department. LVMH helped us. They have all the contacts. One of my missions during the pandemic has been to learn about China, and they have access to the information we need.”
When New York entered melancholic stasis in spring, with its lights out and shutters down, most of Hearst’s peers fled upstate. Many haven’t returned. Spending her days in situ, Hearst often found herself drawing shapes relating to the Golden Ratio and then colouring them in. “I began to realise that we all have certain colours that define our lives,” she says. “You have greys and blacks and charcoals and things that make you sad, but they work as companion colours, and you need them to create others.”
Her bright-orange handknits for autumn are joyful indeed, and all the more so for being made by artisans from the non-profit Manos del Uruguay, which has been supporting female workers in the country for more than
15 years.
Fashion has become obsessed with all things vertical, in which a single company designs, manufactures and retails, selling as fast and as much as possible. But “circular” is quickly becoming the more desirable model. There are warehouses full of unwanted clothing in the world right now, so simply making more stuff makes no sense.
The narrative is now around sustainability and impact reduction, which has been Hearst’s mission since day one. She was the first to make her fashion shows carbon-neutral, with lower light levels than the norm; donations are made to energy-reduction projects to offset the carbon her shows do use. Hearst currently uses 30 per cent recycled cashmere and has mapped as much of her supply chain as she can to date.
Many of the fabrics featured heavily in each collection are from deadstock supplies. They don’t require any lead-in time from a mill, which buys an extra 12 weeks for production. “That means we can send stock by boat, not air,” she explains. The brand aims to use zero virgin materials by 2022.
The latest innovation comes in the form of the “retrofit” label on certain pieces in her autumn collection. These are new designs made from last season’s unsold stock. This, like cutting back on the electrics at the défilé, is something more designers will look at in the future.
“I’ve always wanted to do this,” she says. “Sometimes I look at our inventory and wonder why we have a lot of something. So I’ve taken a coat with a waist that I thought was too tight and reworked it. We have dip-dyed some pieces. Embroidered others. It’s unleashed a new kind of creativity.
“I think that’s the silver lining of Covid,” she continues. “Fear is going to change our behaviour really fast. We were already in a time of crisis. The UN just launched the Sustain Change platform, which allows you to create a company profile, state your goals — lowering your carbon footprint or saving water or whatever — and they match you with people who want to do the same thing. What it took me five years to research and do now takes five minutes. That’s the future.”
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