Gabriela Hearst has been vocal in her support of Save the Children for as long as she’s had her brand, and she’s always name checked influential women as muses for her collectsions. This season she brought these two strains of her identity together, finding inspiration in Eglantyne Jebb, the British social reformer who founded the Save the Children organization at the end of World War I to relieve the effects of famine in Austro-Hungary and Germany.
Recent world events have made Jebb’s work freshly and poignantly timely. The film rights to a 2009 biography of the humanitarian, which outlines that she was tried for treason for wanting to help the children of a former enemy, were optioned in 2024. Hearst’s collectsion did not comprise costumes for a would-be movie, though. Jebb’s Edwardian lace was the model for the dresses that opened the show, and the light blue of a long suede dress was apparently a favorite color of her youth, but you couldn’t call anything here period correct. Hearst has her own well-defined signatures: the hand-crocheted cashmere lace from Bolivia; the cowboy boots, hand-painted this season by artist Almudena Cañedo; a thriving tailoring category; and a commitment to using repurposed (real) fur.
Menswear is a small but growing part of Hearst’s business, and she’s often included men on her runways in the past. This time around, she had women modeling it. Leather army jackets, bombers, and cargo pants, some in natural vachetta, were defiantly rugged. The patterns on masculine jackets in herringbone and checked wool-cashmere blends were reproduced on knit separates and printed on a silk dress, to layer or not at will. Adding a luxurious note to the sturdy silhouettes were removable fur collars in neutral tones and brights, Hearst’s contribution to the growing trend for versatile styling devices.
There’s been little acknowledgement of the rising global crisis at the Paris shows. Maybe that’s too much to ask of designers already facing down the economic pressures of collapsing retail models and changing consumer preferences. Still, Hearst’s show reminded anyone who cared to pay attention of the value in widening the lens.
