Yahoo Lifestyle Gabriela Hearst Fall 2025: The Luxury of Doing the Right Thing
Funding cuts for humanitarian projects; the threat to gender identity rights; on-again, off again tariffs; forced deportations; Elon Musk’s slash-and-burn of the federal government…it’s easy to tune it all out during fashion month, which has seemed like an alternate universe.
Indeed, most designers have gone merrily along without addressing any of it, or if they do, saying obliquely that their punk or comforting clothing inspiration is a reaction against “what’s happening in the world.”
More from WWD
Not so Gabriela Hearst, who stepped out for her runway bow at Paris Fashion Week wearing an ACLU hat, and had ACLU representatives canvassing outside the Palais du Tokyo with information about how to interact with ICE agents.
With sustainability and political activism seemingly falling out of fashion, Hearst is one of the few who continues to carry the torch, selling the luxury of doing the right thing with as many sustainable materials and practices as possible.
Hearst is convinced that if women ruled the world, as they did for thousands of years, it would be a more just and peaceful place, where USAID programs like Save the Children, which she works with, would not be defunded.
So for fall, she summoned goddess energy, ancient symbols of renewal and nature, including swirls, snakes and sprouting shoots, and wove them through her chicly ferocious collection, which had a new refinement this season.
“I wanted the collection to be as raw and as sophisticated as possible,” she said, explaining how long it took to explain to her Italian factories that she wanted to create plonge leather jackets and skirts with raw, jagged hems. (They did look cool.)
“We have snake four ways,” she joked. And she did, as a sleek Inversa python skin pencil skirt, sexy leather scale bustier dress, jacquard scale woven popover, and a screen print goddess on a stunner of a statement shearling coat.
In a season full of shearling, hers were distinctive, including a white deerskin moto coat with a clever detachable shearling skirt, a lush fisherman sweater woven with shearling strips, and even shearling covered cowboy boots.
The exotic was tempered with everyday recycled denim in deep sienna, cobalt and orange hues, cashmere multicolor pinstripe suiting, ribbed knitwear with swirl details at the bust, and perforated leather separates, all of which had a welcome lightness and ease.
In line with her company growth mode, she amped up accessories, introducing handsome new versions of her Ohio slip-on sneaker in nubuck with rainbow speckle colored recycled soles, and a new tote bag called the Marija, after trailblazing female anthropologist Marija Gimbutas, whose research inspired Hearst.
She also dipped her toe into upcycling, creating gorgeous herringbone mink coats pieced together from vintage ones, and reworking vintage exotic skin bags from Italy that were peppered into the runway collection, and will be sold to VICs.
Hearst certainly has found her groove, making desirable clothing with an earthy but polished elegance, that doesn’t take away from the women (and men) with something to say.
Launch Gallery: Gabriela Hearst Fall 2025 Ready-To-Wear Collection
Best of WWD
Sign up for WWD's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
