Animal Rights and Cruelty-Free Values Run Deeply in Rooney Mara’s Spirit
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Rooney Mara wears Hiraeth lace-trimmed organza Ida dress, $1,300, from Dover Street Market (DSM) London, New York, LA and Singapore, and hiraethcollective.com | Image: Naj Jamai via HTSI
Frustrated with the limited clothing and accessories choices available to vegan consumers, actor Rooney Mara launched fashion brand Hiraeth, with partners Sara Schloat, a chiildhood friend, and Chrys Wong, previously with Barneys. The collection even includes vegan combat boots, available for $650, writes How To Spend It Magazine.
Animal Rights and Cruelty-Free Values Run Deeply in Rooney Mara’s Spirit
Hireath offers two collections a year manufactured in Los Angeles with a conscientious view of workers. Mara herself has had the chance to meet every person who is creating the clothes. “That was really important to me—to know where everything comes from, and that it’s all coming from a place of integrity,” she says.
The romantic, minimal, made to last clothing is available at hireathcollective.com, and worldwide at Dover Street Market. One assumes there is negative impact by the closing of Barneys, which was a major home for the brand.
Mara, who has been vegan for about eight years, is engaged to actor Joaquin Phoenix, vegan since age three. As for the name ‘Hiraeth’, it is a Welsh word referencing a nostalgia or homesickness for a place that might never have existed. “I think we’re in that place right now as a society with every facet of our lives,” she explains. “Who are we? Where are we? Where are we going? We’re all so uncomfortable and trying to figure out where to go next. That word, Hiraeth, just really resonated with me. It was always a feeling I’ve had of being a very romantic, nostalgic person, just always feeling like… wanting to return to some place that doesn’t really exist.”
Rooney Mara wears Hiraeth cotton Margot blouse, $450, available in February 2020 from hiraethcollective.com, vegan leather trousers, $675, available in January 2020 from Dover Street Market London, New York and LA and hiraethcollective.com, and polyester and polyurethane Irma boots, $650, on special order from hiraeth collective.com | Image: Naj Jamai via HTPI
Rooney Mara Exposes Factory Farms
Among Rooney Mara’s latest projects is her work with the nonprofit Animal Equality and their new short film ‘With My Own Eyes’. Mara investigates conditions for animals at factory farms — the source of the majority of America’s food supply.
"It's so much more awful than you could even imagine," Mara says as she takes a closer look at the factory's "gestation crates," where pigs who have spent their entire lives on the farm repeatedly give birth until they're slaughtered without ever having felt fresh air. "All the different rooms that we went into just felt like hell on Earth to me, but really that maternity ward, especially the mother pigs—that was probably the worst place I've ever been," she says. "I kept thinking about my sister who just had a baby, and thinking about how beautiful that was—that instant desire to nurture and protect your child. So I can't imagine how awful it must be to be literally trapped and crushing your own babies and not be able to do anything about it."
