Gabriela Hearst Spring/Summer 2016
Gabriela Hearst showed her third collection for her eponymous brand at Lindsey Adelman’s SoHo lighting studio filled with modern art and inspired lit-up designs against white walls. Those inspired designs were joined by Hearst’s inspired designs, done up in unabashedly rich fabrications—white eyelets, light wools, silk gowns. Lean silhouettes got the color treatment, with navy, olive and cream punctuated with dashes of yellow and orange with an emphasis on hardware. The standout is a rose gold necklace on a cream column gown. Take five minutes with the designer, below.
HB: What was your goal for this season?
Gabriela Hearst: Basically, I had a few missions I wanted to accomplish with this collection. One of them was I wanted to explore color. I usually tend to be more into the classical colors, so we worked with them in particular ways and put it in geometric shapes—it could be in the knits, or it could be in the printed stripes, or embroidered. Then, it was about exploring the hardware—which is a very big part of the brand right now. I put it on the men’s inspired trousers, but we enlarged them and incorporated them in the dresses as well.
HB: And it feels so rich— how exactly do you do that?
GH: It’s a lot of work and research on fabrics and how they would function. We have a gown that I love, which is wool embroidered on tulle. When you incorporate a woven fabric into a knit, sometimes you have to test it because they can reject it. There’s a lot of swatch making, so about it’s attention to details.
HB: Who are you designing for?
GH: Well, we’re here in [lighting and object designer] Lindsey Adelman ‘s showroom. She’s kind of the woman I like to have in mind when designing because not only is she a super talented, creative person, but she has her own family and is running her own business. It’s the type of woman who has ambition, that is practical but also creative.
HB: This is your third collection for the Gabriela Hearst brand. What have been your biggest challenges, and what have been the high points?
GH: Well as you know, I’ve been designing overall for a decade. But for this collection, I wanted to work so much with these materials, and I just wanted things to be made to last. It’s been a learning curve to just try to research all of the mills that we wanted to use, the yarns that we wanted to use. It was a good thing that our first collection got bought, launching with Barneys exclusively, so it was a relief. And then it’s selling now, so it all kind of ties together. For me, the circle finishes for fall when the customer actually buys the garment and takes it home and is happy with it.
Via: HarpersBazaar.com
