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Sustainability should be at the heart of everything a creative designer does, Gabriela Hearst said at Vogue Business Fashion Futures, which took place at the Design Museum in London on Tuesday.
That doesn’t mean being an expert, she made clear — but rather, being open to learning, flexible in one’s decision-making, and willing to design within parameters rather than in spite of them. Above all, it also means remaining focused on craft and healthy growth, not on the pursuit of financial growth at the expense of anything else.
“I love money like anyone else. But I think there has to be a level of having the greed on check,” the founder of her eponymous brand and the former creative director at Richemont-owned Chloé said on stage at the Design Museum. “I don’t want to be a big brand. You have to think about the growth of the company as being dependent on nature. On my sustainability journey, it’s everything for me.”
Hearst headlined the Vogue Business event, reflecting on what she learnt at Chloé about scaling sustainability efforts and speaking about her creative philosophy more broadly, as she spoke in conversation with senior sustainability editor Rachel Cernansky. She’s convinced that in general, people want to do good — pointing to the Great Resignation as evidence that people are looking for fulfilment in their jobs — and that if you start the wheels turning for sustainability and entrench it into how people work, momentum will follow and progress will be sustained.
She feels confident that the impact she worked towards at Chloé, for instance — much of which focused on improving their materials portfolio — will endure. The brand had one person focused on sustainability when she started; she grew that team to 11, and she said she was able to prove that investments in sustainability can pay off financially, pointing to the overhaul of the Nama sneaker, now a top performer for the brand.
“The whole value system had to change,” she said. “The big lesson is that it can also rebuild a business that is strong… you can upgrade a product with social and environmental value. The results were extremely positive, and that’s the most rewarding thing.”
Now, at her own brand, she’s keeping her focus on her core principles. If one material is more sustainable than another, she doesn’t look at that as a restriction on creativity — it’s simply part of the parameters she chooses to work within. In designing her new store that opened in Los Angeles this month, she said on Tuesday, the focus was on longevity; that meant the specific ceiling design she wanted would take longer than an alternative, but it was worth it because she wants the store to last as long as possible. “We don’t want to change our store every year or every 10 years or ever,” she said. “You shouldn’t compromise.”
She takes the same view, whether it’s architecture, product design or the growth of the company as a whole. “Everything is so short-term,” she said. “You want to have an original point of view in life today? Think long-term.”
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