VOGUE Runway reports— “Gabriela Hearst Fall 2025 Ready-to-Wear”
ORIGINALLY REPORTED BY NICOLE PHELPS FOR VOGUE Runway. Read Full Article.
It was a big Monday for women designers in Paris. Gabriela Hearst followed Sacai’s Chitose Abe and Marine Serre, and preceded Paula Canovas de Vas, and Nicky Zimmerman’s Zimmermann show. Five in a row must be some kind of record. If you ask Hearst, the scarcity of women designers in fashion is part of a long continuum, but it wasn’t always this way.
Hearst’s research into the subject of women’s inequality recently led her to the work of archeologist Marija Gimbutas, whose scholarly book, The Language of the Goddess, reveals that tens of thousands of years ago, aeons before any of the dominant world religions of today emerged, we were goddess worshippers, living in Earth-oriented, matriarchal societies. How did things go so wrong is a question we’re asking ourselves more and more lately. Hearst doesn’t have the answers but she likes prodding at sensitive subjects.
So she used some of the imagery of cave markings in Gimbutas’s book as decoration, spray painting them on shearling and embroidering black leather cords on a white dress. If the snaking lines look like the female sexual anatomy to you, you’re not wrong; Hearst pointed to illustrations of cave drawings depicting the same thing that date back to 30,000 B.C.
She’s built an earth-centered brand, all things being relative in this wildly wasteful industry. Among the notable developments on the responsible design front was the opening look, a coat that might be mistaken for shearling or fake fur, but is in fact silk. The snakeskin that came later was from INVERSA, a Florida company that ethically sources python skin from invasive Burmese snakes in the Everglades. And the denim dyed vibrant shades of yellow and lapis blue was made from 100% recycled cotton. Refurbing vintage handbags with new straps was a clever way to say “new is not always better.”
But, of course, newness is what a fashion show is about. Hearst’s experiments in that area included the leather woven to resemble snakeskin that she used on a bustier top and a midi skirt and the cashmere yarn knitted to look like the same thing on a pullover jacket. Her clothes are at their best when they’re close enough to touch.