Chris Colls Captures Yasmin Wijnaldum in Gabriela Hearst for ELLE US April 2021

Model Yasmin Wijnaldum poses in Gabriela Hearst Spring 2021 designs, styled by Alex White. Photographer Chris Colls is in the studio for ELLE US April 2021./ Hair by Orlando Pita; makeup by Frank B

It’s one things to be a designer who appreciates artisanship and owns an embrace of global sustainability for years. It’s another matter entirely to be a luxury designer who is simultaneously a sheep rancher. Hearst’s formidable upbringing on a ranch in Uruguay makes her a designer not particularly driven by trends. Quite the opposite, Hearst is very resourceful , constantly questioning the impact of her design and production decisions on places and people.

The new designer of Chloé, in addition to her own eponymous brand, tells Veronique Hyland that as a result of the pandemic, she is trusting her gut instincts more than ever. Once she allowed her subconscious brain to intervene in the design process — and in advance of her spring 2021 collection presentation — Hearst dreamed about her grandmother knotting cloth on her back to create a dress.

“A dream of reassurance,” she called it. Another talisman that brought solace was a shell bracelet from Rapa Nui (Easter Island) that her mother had given her right before the pandemic hit. Those two threads found themselves intertwining in the spring 2021 collection Hearst showed in Paris in October, appearing in the knotted back of a dress and in the shells clinging to the edges of gowns’ cutouts. The collection, titled “Dreams of Mothers and Grandmothers,” was steeped in the comforting idea that generations of women had tackled seemingly impossible challenges before.

“Braiding shells on a dress is something a machine cannot do,” Hearst says. The magic of the process lay in “human imperfection, and then the imperfection transforming to [something] marvelous. We are, at this company, believers in trying to save as many crafts as we can.” Such tactile arts also offered a way to feel more connected to the physical in a digital sphere. “I think that’s one of our big challenges,” Hearst says. “We’re so physical, so human. It’s challenging to express that in the digital world.” She asked herself a question we’re all grappling with these days: “How can you emote and provoke [while] being mostly digital?”

Read the entire Gabriela Hearst interview at ELLE US.