Gabriela Hearst showed her spring 2022 collection Thursday in New York, a deeply personal mix of arty details; sustainable materials, and multiple handcrafted-collabs from the Americas.

In the crowd were Naiomi Glasses and TahNibaa Naataanii members of the Navajo Nation. The two women collaborated with Hearst on the woven swatches that were inset into the bodice of a sleeveless dress and the shoulders of a trench.

Glasses organized the arrangement (she’s a graduate of the Creative Futures Collective, which is dedicated to empowering creatives from disenfranchised communities). Glasses is also gaining major notoriety as a skateboarder, creating her own skatepark in Arizona. Teen Vogue did an exciting profile of Naiomi in March.

Naataanii, who is a sheepherder and a weaver, did the hand work, with the help of her mother and daughter.

“It’s been an amazing experience, I didn’t know you can’t cut a Navajo weaving because they are sacred. So we had to give them the dimensions so they could weave it for the dress and the trench.”

On the sustainability front in accessories, Hearst showed fringe covered totes, cork sandals and raffia platforms made in collaboration with Robert Clergerie. Hearst is also using natural rubber.

Nearly 40 per cent of the collection is made from deadstock materials — and that is not good enough. Hearst wants her Pre-Fall collection to be made from 100 per cent recycled or deadstock materials while CO2 emissions from the show were also carbon offset.

Hearst experimented with natural dyes this season – producing the pinks and fluorescent greens you can see in the collection. “One of the things we were working on is botanical dyeing,” Hearst says. “It makes sense, but you’re still so surprised by how vibrant [the colours] are.”

New York art dealer Hester Diamond was Hearst’s “spirit guide” for the new collection. Diamond went from modern art to Old Masters to minerals. “I’m also a geode freak,” said Hearst, who has a crystal dealer. Diamond was also marvelously age-defiant, or “bolder as she got older,” Hearst said, noting she married for the third time at 86 and died last year at 91.

Connection and community are high priorities for Gabriela Hearst. Spirit-connections abound in her creative process.

At a press preview, Hearst said about the new collection, “I like to make sure that what we do is good for more people than just us.” Her press notes put it this way: “Being able to create beautiful pieces that are desirable and at the same time that empower others is probably one of the most satisfying personal experiences.” She also worked with Manos del Uruguay and a Bolivian collective, Madres & Artesanas Tex. The former are responsible for a couple of gorgeous chunky runas. Hearst’s children collaborated with her to create a swirling abstract painting that became pieces in a finer gauge multicolor crochet.