Does Fashion Have a Future? Designer Gabriela Hearst is Threading the Needle.

Gabriela Hearst is one of the rare figures in fashion with an unwavering commitment to sustainability. At the top, we discuss her luminous Spring Summer 2026 collection https://gabrielahearst.com/collections/spring-summer-2026-trunkshow?srsltid=AfmBOopLl9NQr-llfg1SkXiYN3AcjAvd7b1S6Djk5WD0-H9DP0FVhGLb at Paris Fashion Week (4:08), her childhood herding cattle on a 17,000-acre ranch in Uruguay (6:55), and the gaucho traditions that shaped her philosophy around art-making (10:35). Then, Gabriela reflects on the manifestation practice that’s guided her since adolescence (17:15), how love and heartbreak fueled her creatively (21:18), and what she took from a detour into acting (21:50). On the back-half, Hearst talks about motherhood (24:30), founding her first label, Candela (31:00), and breaking free from the vicious cycle of fast fashion (38:00). To close, we walk through the past decade of Gabriela Hearst (40:28), the long-term vision for the namesake brand (50:00), and the affirmation that keeps her grounded (58:10). This episode was recorded at Spotify Studios. Thoughts or future guest ideas? Email us at [email protected]. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:21Sam Fragoso?

  This is Talk Easy. I'm Sam Fragoso. Welcome to the show.

• 0:38Sam Fragoso?

  Today, visionary designer Gabriela Hearst. She's one of the rare figures in fashion with an unwavering commitment to sustainability. And that commitment is informed by her personal history. She was raised on a 17,000-acre ranch in Uruguay, where every summer she herded cattle with her family. Those traditions instilled in her a lifelong respect for the land and laid the groundwork for the way she makes clothing and accessories today. Eventually, Gabriela left the ranch and found herself in New York City in the early 2000s. It was there that she began working and studying in the garment district, dreaming of an alternative to fast fashion. What she imagined was something called honest luxury, garments that push back

• 1:23Sam Fragoso?

  against the staggering waste of the industry while honoring the people and resources that make it all possible. As Gabriela wrote in a Time op-ed earlier this year, she believes that sustainability isn't a marketing tool, but a daily practice rooted in the urgency of climate change. So, over the past decade, instead of just talking about those values, Hearst has actually built a brand that embodies them. She previously served as the creative director of Chloé. She's become an ambassador for Save the Children, and through her namesake label, she continues to reimagine what a fashion house can and should be when built with purpose. Earlier this month, that vision was on full display at Paris Fashion Week. Her Spring/Summer

• 2:08Sam Fragoso?

  '26 collection opened by Actor and collaborator Laura Dern drew from the Tarot's Major Arcana for inspiration. Made of at least 80% dead stock fabrics, the show set a new precedent, the first nearly fully circular luxury collection. So today, we trace the road to this pivotal moment for Gabriela Hearst. The gaucho traditions of her childhood, the love and heartbreak that propelled her forward, and the impact she hopes to create for generations to come.

• 2:39Sam Fragoso?

  This is Gabriela Hearst.

• 2:57Sam Fragoso?

  Gabriela Hearst, welcome to the show.

• 3:00Speaker 01

  Sam.

• 3:01Sam Fragoso?

  This has been a long time in the making.

• 3:03Speaker 01

  Yes, since the moment I asked you to be in the podcast.

• 3:08Speaker 01

  And you were like, you want to be in my podcast? I'm like, yes.

• 3:11Sam Fragoso?

  Well, as you know, we don't have many people on the show that work in the space that you do. I was gonna say fashion, but I've read in every interview you say, I don't work in fashion.

• 3:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, kind of.

• 3:22Sam Fragoso?

  How can I describe what you work in, if it's not fashion?

• 3:25Speaker 01

  I mean, I don't want to sound obnoxious, because I think that's kind of one of the worst things ever. And snobism is completely the most demoralizing thing. But I work with materials, so it's more, you can compare it to, my best friend's is a chef. And the comparisons between what we do are very similar. So I look for the best materials that I can find and try to create with that. Because those materials are so special, and in today's world, finding things of quality is becoming harder and harder. I don't use velvets that are made out of viscose or polyester. I don't use polymers, I don't use natural fibers.

• 4:08Speaker 01

  Viscose is a celluloid, so it's a natural fiber, but it kills a lot of trees. So to look for a silk velvet, which was the way velvet was made, it's becoming harder. Before, I could find them everywhere.

• 4:18Sam Fragoso?

  Why is it becoming harder now?

• 4:20Speaker 01

  Because quality has decreased, like in everything, in every single medium, like in food, to movies, to anything. The quality has decreased.

• 4:29Sam Fragoso?

  You know, we're talking less than a month before you have this show in Paris, where you'll be unveiling your latest collection. Tell me, in the three, four weeks leading up to a show, what is your day to day like? Are you running around frantically? Are you on the phone angry with supply chains? Like, what's going on?

• 4:48Speaker 01

  Every season is different. And every season has, like, sometimes they flow and they're very easy in the sense of like, not easy because everything we do is hard. But because I have so many other things happening up to the show right now, I have so many things to focus on that it's not a primary stressor.

• 5:06Sam Fragoso?

  Okay, what are the primary stresses?

• 5:08Speaker 01

  Oh, my God, I have so many things.

• 5:09Sam Fragoso?

  This is what we're here for.

• 5:11Speaker 01

  From personal life, I'm living in a hotel because my house is going on the construction. So I have my kids starting school. My other daughter, I have to take her to her school in Massachusetts.

• 5:22Sam Fragoso?

  Do you need me to come cook for you guys?

• 5:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, maybe. No, we're in a hotel, so there's room service.

• 5:26Sam Fragoso?

  Room service, okay.

• 5:27Speaker 01

  But, you know, I'm traveling three times this month to Europe, going to work in the UK, then come back, going to Milan to start doing the fittings there and come back. And then at the same time, doing different events here and organizing. I have one event happening.

• 5:40Sam Fragoso?

  After another?

• 5:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:41Sam Fragoso?

  It seems like you like it this way.

• 5:43Speaker 01

  I can think in many levels and do things in different mediums at the same time. I'm interested in living a life with purpose. And my driver, I always say, if I want to do something, very, very few things can stop me. And I learned that since I'm a little kid, since I'm 17 years old, when I decided to go live in Australia. And I come from Uruguay in the middle of nowhere. This is like before globalization.

• 6:08Sam Fragoso?

  Long before.

• 6:09Speaker 01

  Long before globalization.

• 6:10Sam Fragoso?

  There was one spot left in the school in Australia.

• 6:13Speaker 01

  Oh, my God, you did your research.

• 6:15Sam Fragoso?

  And you applied, you got it.

• 6:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:18Sam Fragoso?

  And then you did the presentation again for your parents.

• 6:20Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 6:21Sam Fragoso?

  And even they couldn't stop you.

• 6:23Speaker 01

  They could not stop me.

• 6:24Sam Fragoso?

  When people think of a designer of luxury fashion, high fashion, whatever you want to call it. The image that comes to mind is someone from the Upper East Side of New York, educated in private schools that cost more than most colleges in this country. You're not exactly what comes to mind, which is why I personally like immediately fell in love with you and your work and your story. And part of that is you come of age in Uruguay on a 17,000 acre ranch, surrounded by horses. Born into a family, I think it's six generations of ranchers, that quote, conceived you in a forest. As far as origin stories go, I'm pretty sure that's the first time I've ever said that on the show. Is that true or is that?

• 7:08Speaker 01

  Absolutely true. In the forest, in my mom's ranch, which was my grandfather's ranch at the time, my mom can name the spot. Like she's taken me there, we have shown it to my children.

• 7:19Sam Fragoso?

  She said, this is where it happened.

• 7:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, and she knew it because she was actually taking the pill. And that's the day she didn't take the pill.

• 7:25Sam Fragoso?

  Wow.

• 7:26Speaker 01

  And I came to this world very easy, like 30 minutes I was in. And yeah, I was easy baby.

• 7:34Sam Fragoso?

  Were you an easy child to raise?

• 7:36Speaker 01

  Yes, I was, I was, I was definitely, I was very different than everyone around me.

• 7:42Sam Fragoso?

  How do you mean?

• 7:43Speaker 01

  I would be drawing all day. I learned how to read and write in English before than in Spanish. Nobody in my family speaks English. They did send me when I was around six to the British Schools of Montevideo.

• 7:54Sam Fragoso?

  And your grandmother raised you then, right?

• 7:56Speaker 01

  But you're never going to see a picture of me that I'm not on Pinterest. Like I've always been on Pinterest. You know, people are like, oh, you know, like that era. I'm like, I don't have that.

• 8:05Sam Fragoso?

  Throwback Thursday to when I looked terrible.

• 8:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, no.

• 8:08Sam Fragoso?

  Gabriela always looked amazing.

• 8:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was, now looking back, I really truly believe things choose you, right? What you're going to do, what your passion drives you. Cause I knew that I wanted to do something creative. I didn't know what it was, but you look at my journals, because I've journaled all my life. I have journals from when I was 17 years old, as I was planning to go to Australia. I have collections of shoes that I've designed and drawn, but collections, like full on collections. And I've made them.

• 8:34Sam Fragoso?

  I read somewhere that when you went to your school reunion, every single classmate came up to you and said, You were always that girl, sketching in the back, designing quinceañera dresses.

• 8:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:48Sam Fragoso?

  Do you remember the first sketch you put to paper?

• 8:51Speaker 01

  No, I probably don't have conscience of that.

• 8:54Sam Fragoso?

  It was that early?

• 8:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, I've always been drawing dresses and princess dresses. And I would imagine, I used to hurdle cattle every summer of my life. If you want to picture something, picture Yellowstone without the choppers. Like, that's it. Like, the brutality, like, the survivor blood, like, that, that kind of, really, you need to take decisions quickly, right? And I hurdled cattle every single summer of my life. Then there's like a technique to it, and there's like screaming and shouting. And I will disassociate from that and be like imagining that I was like riding horses with these huge dresses. So, yes.

• 9:36Sam Fragoso?

  Do you remember disassociating? Is that something like in the moment you knew you were doing? Or only later did you look back on that?

• 9:42Speaker 01

  I mean, I've always had a big fantasy world. And I see it in my son, too. My son can do the same thing I was able to do when I was a kid. I could play for hours with my imagination because I had nothing. There was no TVs, there was only radio. And so I had National Geographics, Reader's Digest, the magazines, and my imagination and the vast horizons.

• 10:05Sam Fragoso?

  What kind of style did your mother and father have?

• 10:07Speaker 01

  Gaucho, traditional gaucho. And I think that's what influences my design.

• 10:12Sam Fragoso?

  Mm-hmm.

• 10:13Speaker 01

  There is a uniform to that, and there's a tradition to that.

• 10:17Sam Fragoso?

  Isn't there a national holiday for gauchos?

• 10:19Speaker 01

  Yes, there's a gaucho national holiday.

• 10:21Sam Fragoso?

  What would happen at school on those days?

• 10:24Speaker 01

  Well, they didn't make it like a holiday that you don't go to school. But one of the first of those, they used a picture of my father. This is how my gaucho, there's a poster of my father, a picture of my father.

• 10:35Sam Fragoso?

  So they would bring in the photo and then the kids would would draw it? Is that what they would do?

• 10:39Speaker 01

  I was a teenager when that happened and there was a poster with a picture of like what a gaucho a male looks like and what a female gaucho it looks like. It's called chinas, like they call it chinas, that's it.

• 10:49Sam Fragoso?

  Did your mother fit into that?

• 10:51Speaker 01

  My mom was OG gaucho, was more gaucho than my father.

• 10:54Sam Fragoso?

  Really?

• 10:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, because my mom comes from a family of landowners and my dad was self-made, which was very, very hard. But my mom used to compete in rodeo at 18 and that's one of the first images I have in my head is her being thrown, doing a rodeo, meaning being on a bronco and being thrown by the horse. And this is not like the rodeos in the US where there's all these protections. This is like a stick in, a little stick, like a piece of wood that's like stuck on the mud and then the bronco being wild and there's nothing and how long can you stay in the bronco? And then my mom would be thrown by the bronco, fall into the ground, no saddle, nothing, and come walking to me with her teeth falling and blood all over her face, but like nothing happened.

• 11:40Sam Fragoso?

  What did you think of that?

• 11:42Speaker 01

  I I mean, I remember it because it was traumatic, but that sort of things were my normal, like she did what the guys did. There was no difference.

• 11:52Sam Fragoso?

  My understanding in reading about you, like your parents each had their own ranch.

• 11:57Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 11:58Sam Fragoso?

  Did that happen before or after they divorced?

• 12:01Speaker 01

  They happened before.

• 12:02Sam Fragoso?

  And what age were you when that happened?

• 12:04Speaker 01

  Seven years old.

• 12:05Sam Fragoso?

  You were seven?

• 12:06Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 12:07Sam Fragoso?

  Was that common where you grew up, parents divorcing?

• 12:10Speaker 01

  Not as common, but nothing about my mom's family is common. Like the women married a lot, usually because they had land and they were more independent.

• 12:19Sam Fragoso?

  Right, they could do as they please.

• 12:21Speaker 01

  Exactly, and my mother married three times.

• 12:24Sam Fragoso?

  And what did you think of your parents splitting up?

• 12:28Speaker 01

  I was so young. I remember having the consciousness of, oh, I am that kid that has the divorced parents. And then I remember they sent me to psychiatrists. And I was thinking like, why am I going to therapy if they are the ones that are getting divorced?

• 12:42Sam Fragoso?

  They made the mistake.

• 12:43Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 12:44Sam Fragoso?

  Now I have to sit with the therapist.

• 12:45Speaker 01

  Listen, I'm very grateful I'm alive and that was conceived the way I was conceived. So if it lasted seven years and they had me, I was like, I'm grateful. You know, once you start to understand the mathematical improbability of being alive, right? What's matter and non-matter in this universe? The chance that we are here doing this, like, this is impossible. Like, we are doing an impossible. Like, if somebody would look objectively at this as a mathematical number, they would like, we have no chance.

• 13:18Sam Fragoso?

  Right.

• 13:18Speaker 01

  We're here.

• 13:19Sam Fragoso?

  Oh, you're saying just being alive in general?

• 13:21Speaker 01

  Being alive and being a human.

• 13:23Sam Fragoso?

  A miracle.

• 13:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, and like being here, dressed in the clothes I make that are very nice, talking to you that you're very nice. It's like, all of this is fantastic.

• 13:32Sam Fragoso?

  It's a statistical improbability.

• 13:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. That's what I'm trying to say.

• 13:36Sam Fragoso?

  Okay, you finished school, you're 21 years old, you've saved up $5,000.

• 13:41Speaker 01

  Oh, yes.

• 13:41Sam Fragoso?

  And you tell your parents, I want to go to Paris and I want a model. And they say what?

• 13:48Speaker 01

  They were not cool about that. And I'm like, I'm just going to go. I had a psychiatrist, my mom and my dad. And the psychiatrist saying if she's going to go to Europe, she's going to die there. And I was like, I may as well, you know, die in Europe.

• 14:03Sam Fragoso?

  Why do you think he said that?

• 14:05Speaker 01

  Well, I grew up in South America. There was a lot of pressure on how women would look like. And I went through a period like in my late teenage years to beginning to the, you know, my twenties that I had eating disorders, I was bulimic. So I was like very skinny.

• 14:23Sam Fragoso?

  And you were like, well, this is my fate.

• 14:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:26Sam Fragoso?

  Is that how you felt?

• 14:28Speaker 01

  You know, my father describes me to have the courage of a puma. When I have a calling of what I have to do, again, like, I don't know, but the water's open for me and I just go do it. And I think it's a very tough. Time for any teenager, but for women specifically, where you go from young adulthood to womanhood.

• 14:50Sam Fragoso?

  Right. This is like the late nineties.

• 14:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, this is like late nineties, early two thousands. But that period of really wanting to know who you are. And for me, what brought closure, like what made me stop having eating disorders, was art. I went to the Neighborhood Playhouse School of Theatre in New York for two years. And I knew that being so occupied with art all day long, creating all day long, was part of my process. And they take seventy five students. I don't know if they change it now. But at that time, they used to take seventy five students for the first year. And in the next year, it would be only like twenty one students. So it was very much like a reality TV show. It's like, who's gonna make it to the second year? And I had no performing art background.

• 15:36Speaker 01

  You had opera singers, ballet dancers, and I made it through pure grit.

• 15:41Sam Fragoso?

  You know, when I started doing research on your website, Gabriela Hearst, there is a timeline. And the timeline goes nineteen seventy six, Gabby is born. Then the next one is two thousand, she's in New York. And we have spent the first twenty minutes talking about the twenty four years that's not in that timeline. And I wanted to do that on purpose because I feel like there's a lot in there

• 16:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:05Sam Fragoso?

  that informed the woman that's sitting before me right now. When you went to Paris and you decided you were gonna leave and go to New York, you said, quote, "When I look back, it's like all the bad ideas put together." What were the bad ideas?

• 16:20Speaker 01

  I've studied communications, because it was like closest thing to something creative. So I knew I wanted to do something creative. And there were people that I knew were doing films and they were doing ads, you know, in Uruguay. So I thought, maybe I do this. Or was that or lawyer? I definitely wasn't going to do ranching. So I went to school for that. And, and then I had this thing about wanting to like manifest things where I would say, there was this boyfriend I had, which was not the greatest, but he was a jet ski champion. I remember seeing him on TV. I'm like, I want him to be my boyfriend. And then, you know, two, three months later, he's my boyfriend. And, exactly.

• 17:04Speaker 01

  I mean, really.

• 17:05Sam Fragoso?

  I've known you for almost two years now.

• 17:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:07Sam Fragoso?

  That sounds exactly how I understand every Gabriela Hur story. She says, I'm interested, I would like to do that, I'm going to do that. I've never seen you not do the thing you said you wanted to do.

• 17:20Speaker 01

  Sometimes it happens and I get really like, what the hell's going on? I don't have my chi. But going back to the bad boyfriend where I wanted to take you there was meeting my friend Paola that was so consequential to my life. You know, like, sometimes you meet these people that change your life. You know, like, they really like meet you and they change the trajectory of your life. So that boyfriend took me to this place called Tequila, which was a club in Buenos Aires, which my friend Paola was the PR of the place. And I looked completely different from anyone because I had already come from Australia. I was grunge, like, I had, like, short blonde hair and, like, cargo pants

• 18:03Speaker 01

  and, like, underwear coming out and a husband beater. And so she was like, you. Basically, she like pointed me out from the crowd, like, she was like, you. And we started talking, we became friends. I said, you should be a model. She's the person that told me you should be a model. I'm like, I should be a model? And I was 21. It's like, that's really old for being a model. At that time, it's like you would be a model at 15, 16. So she introduced me to a model agent. And then that agency, then I went, I got an agency in Paris that was very good to call Next. But I was a disaster of a model.

• 18:39Sam Fragoso?

  Why?

• 18:39Speaker 01

  I don't take people telling me what to do so well. And also, it was the period where, like, it was the Brazilians, Amasonians, and I looked like, like a young David Bowie. So it wasn't a look. So that's how my first kind of change of life. That's when you're telling me my parents didn't want me to go modeling and I left.

• 18:59Sam Fragoso?

  And when did you know you had a problem?

• 19:02Speaker 01

  Oh, I knew it before.

• 19:03Sam Fragoso?

  You knew it before?

• 19:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's why it was a bad idea. I knew that I had eating disorders, plus I wanted to be a model.

• 19:07Sam Fragoso?

  How do you know something like that?

• 19:11Speaker 01

  You just, little by little, it's like a friend telling you, there's like certain things that people say that start snapping the crack on like, wait, I have an issue. Like, a friend of mine, which was a doctor, we were walking in the beach and he said, you know, I have patients that look like you in the emergency room. And all of a sudden, I'm walking in the beach thinking I look so hot, which I wasn't, like the complete body dysmorphia. And then there was something very poignant from my mom, where she said to me, imagine if you would be using this energy, because eighty percent of my energy was being consumed by the eating disorder, imagine what would you do with that energy? And that kind of also clicked.

• 19:53Speaker 01

  And then you start doing it by yourself and like trying to stop and then, so it took me like two years and a half to like quit.

• 19:59Sam Fragoso?

  Did you have help?

• 20:00Speaker 01

  I had help, but it was really art. I've done therapy all my life, you know, in South America, we're very open to therapy and I continue to do therapy. I find it very important, but for me, it was truly art.

• 20:11Sam Fragoso?

  So nothing was more healing and helpful than art?

• 20:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, and so anytime a friend of mine have like a nervous breakdown, the first thing I do is like I show up with paintings, boxes of different fabric, castel, strippens, and say, okay, draw, I need you to draw, I need you to start drawing. And they're like, I cannot draw and I can't, I'm like, yes, you can draw, we can all draw, you can draw. And it's that ability to start healing yourself.

• 20:37Sam Fragoso?

  So when you go to New York in two thousand?

• 20:40Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 20:41Sam Fragoso?

  Tell me how art began to save you. What did that look like?

• 20:44Speaker 01

  That was in the neighborhood playhouse. I came to New York that permanent time because I had a boyfriend, a polo player, that broke up with me and I was heartbroken. I was in love, it was my early twenties, like, I mean, I could have married him. And he broke up with me and I got so depressed, I couldn't stay in the continent. No, I'm serious, I had to leave the continent. My father named a donkey out of him. I was like so heartbroken, I was like. I like cut my arm, you know, like I've never felt heartbreak. It was a relationship of eight months that took me two years to get over.

• 21:18Sam Fragoso?

  So the heartbreak catapults you to America and do an acting class that it wasn't for you.

• 21:24Speaker 01

  I loved it. I learned so many things. I knew I wasn't a good actress. Because, you know, after two years of training, I felt what a good actor felt twice. But the good things, I couldn't be doing the show or all the interviews that my job demands to do. If I hadn't had that training to be authentic in the moment. But I can tell what a good performance looked like from an actor. And I felt it just a few seconds when you stop being you, like you're someone else.

• 21:50Sam Fragoso?

  Mm hmm.

• 21:50Speaker 01

  And it's the most incredible sensation.

• 21:54Sam Fragoso?

  You remember that right now.

• 21:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, I remember that right now. But people are really good can do it all the time. I was able to have that sensation twice.

• 22:01Sam Fragoso?

  So after two years of acting.

• 22:03Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 22:04Sam Fragoso?

  You go, look, if it's only gonna happen once a year, it's probably not my medium. You make the pivot to fashion how?

• 22:12Speaker 01

  By complete accident. This is why I'm convinced that things choose you. You have like the two type of people, the ones that know exactly what they want to do. Like my sister, she knew she wanted to be a veterinarian at seven years old. My daughter knows that she's gonna be a lawyer since she's seven years old and she will be a lawyer. And these people that know what they want since a very early age. I wasn't sure what I wanted creatively speaking. I knew I wanted to be creative. I knew very clear this. It had to be creative. It had to also be executive and administrative. Meaning like I wanted to be able to administrate things and to execute. No, like I wasn't just doing one thing. It had to be a more satisfying.

• 22:53Sam Fragoso?

  You mean, you had to be the person that walked into the studio today and said, when asked about her upcoming show in Paris, I got about seven other things. I'm not stressed out about it.

• 23:03Speaker 01

  Yeah. And also if you're well organized, you should be not stressed out. I'm saying this while. Maybe like two weeks before the show, I'll be stressed out.

• 23:12Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah, we're gonna call you back.

• 23:13Speaker 01

  But you know, things are like an endurance race.

• 23:15Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah, and you're a marathon runner.

• 23:17Speaker 01

  Not marathon, but long distance. I've done long distance running.

• 23:20Sam Fragoso?

  I meant metaphorically.

• 23:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I've done long distance running.

• 23:25Speaker 01

  Not metaphorically.

• 23:26Sam Fragoso?

  Make sure it's on the record.

• 23:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, like it's on the record in the timeline. I've done 10K races.

• 23:31Sam Fragoso?

  That wasn't on the Gabriela Hearst website.

• 23:33Speaker 01

  No, I shouldn't. I mean, it's too much, yeah.

• 23:35Sam Fragoso?

  We gotta add it.

• 23:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was good at no sport still. At 12 years old, I actually did a cross country and I ended up second. And that's when I actually said, oh, I should take this running seriously.

• 23:44Sam Fragoso?

  But you were good at dating men in sports.

• 23:47Speaker 01

  Yes, but is it dating men in sport or is it dating people with passions?

• 23:53Sam Fragoso?

  That's a question.

• 23:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, because passion, dating or friendship is the driver of life, right?

• 23:59Sam Fragoso?

  The first time he got married, was it out of passion? Was he doing something that was passionate, that inspired you?

• 24:07Speaker 01

  He was the antithesis of everything I have known. And he was like a postcard. Like, I know now that I have some distance. At the end of the day, I'm a breeder, a renter, right? So I know that he was a perfect male to have my daughters with.

• 24:24Sam Fragoso?

  You had twins?

• 24:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, identical twins. I met him in 2005, but we didn't get together. I, I, we, we were friends, like, he was renting the apartment of one of my business partners that have moved to London. And the apartment that they had in Mineta Lane, he was doing his MBA here, and so he was renting it from them. And my friend wasn't my partner, wasn't like the most organized with her stuff. And I find extremely sexy, organized people. Like, organized people are like, like you, like, something very sexy to me is like a complete organized closet. Because I'm like a reformed person, you know, like when people stop smoking and they hate people that smoke.

• 25:09Speaker 01

  So I'm like that person that learned to be organized because I had twins. But like, anything messy freaks me out. So I saw that apartment going from one direction to another. By this inhabitant. And I used to pick up the mail every Friday from there because it was like the official address of our business, of my first business. And I was like, one day I said it out loud, I'm gonna marry this guy.

• 25:31Sam Fragoso?

  This is what I find so striking is that your life seems to be a series of accidents and clear manifestations. Like it's one or the other. Like, I asked you how you started in fashion, you said it's by complete accident. I ask you how you marry someone, you said, the first time I saw him, I'm gonna marry him.

• 25:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it was an insane experience, the whole thing. Like, I always knew I wanted to have twins because my brother and sister are twins. So I used to say, I want twins, I want twins, you know, we're gonna have twins. And we got engaged very quickly, we got pregnant very quickly. And like, I found out I was pregnant on wedding day.

• 26:07Sam Fragoso?

  Oh, wow.

• 26:08Speaker 01

  Also, we had three weddings, just our recommendations, don't have so many weddings.

• 26:11Sam Fragoso?

  After the second one, you thought, let's go for the third?

• 26:14Speaker 01

  He's Belgian or Dutch, but grew up in Belgium. So we had a wedding here, a wedding in Uruguay. We had to make all the family happy, and a wedding in Belgium.

• 26:25Sam Fragoso?

  Were you trying to create a panic attack for yourself?

• 26:28Speaker 01

  No, I definitely like a party and dresses. So, that's for sure. Like, I was on point.

• 26:34Sam Fragoso?

  I have no doubt the outfits were spectacular.

• 26:37Speaker 01

  And the food was great.

• 26:42Sam Fragoso?

  We'll be right back with Gabrielle Hurst.

• 27:01Sam Fragoso?

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• 27:45Sam Fragoso?

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• 28:30Sam Fragoso?

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• 28:46Sam Fragoso?

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• 29:27Sam Fragoso?

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• 30:12Sam Fragoso?

  Let's go back to the work for a second.

• 30:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:14Sam Fragoso?

  The first company you started is a company called

• 30:17Speaker 01

  Candela.

• 30:18Sam Fragoso?

  You started with two partners in Brooklyn that each gave you $700.

• 30:21Speaker 01

  We all put 700.

• 30:23Sam Fragoso?

  Okay. This company begins from a T-shirt line and then expands to footwear and generates $1 million in revenue in the first year of business.

• 30:32Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 30:32Sam Fragoso?

  How does that happen?

• 30:35Speaker 01

  So when you ask me how I end up in fashion, right? I met a designer. She was from South Africa. She used to be an architect and she was silk screening T-shirts in Brooklyn and underwear. She was silk screening blueprints of her underwear.

• 30:52Sam Fragoso?

  And what's silk screening?

• 30:54Speaker 01

  Silk screening is the process of how you silk screen in T-shirts. And it's like these machines and it's like, actually, I learned how to do it. It's a very cool process. And I liked what she was doing and she needed help and she offered me $600 a month to work for her. My rent was a thousand, so it's like the math. It did not.

• 31:15Sam Fragoso?

  You were 400 in the bread.

• 31:16Speaker 01

  Exactly. And then she went to South Africa for a couple of months and I took care of her business. And she was selling in like eight little stores in consignment. And myself and the way I do stuff, it's like I go all in. So I talked to the owner of a showroom. I put her on a showroom. So by the time she comes back, we're in like 35 stores. And that's when I knew I kind of have good at this.

• 31:38Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah.

• 31:38Speaker 01

  In like that schmuck stuff.

• 31:40Sam Fragoso?

  Now, I wanted to ask you about this. See, because we've known each other for a couple of years, I've been dying to know. You're a young woman from Uruguay. You had no real connections here. You came with a modeling career that lasted 10 months. You were working as a waitress for a little bit.

• 31:56Speaker 01

  Got fired.

• 31:57Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah, you got fired?

• 31:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, worked as a hostess.

• 31:59Sam Fragoso?

  Did you have any trouble acclimating to the world of fashion in New York? Did people treat you badly?

• 32:07Speaker 01

  You know, I know, like I think at the beginning, you're thinking about like you're starting at something and you wanna have a cool job that is not working in a restaurant. And you just need to really have this in mind. I went from being the girlfriend of one of the top polo players in the world to coming to New York, going to acting school and having to get a waitressing job in my twenties. Like you gotta see that spectrum. So that designer I helped out, when she comes back, she's like, oh, we'll be business partners. I was excited but naive. Then like money started coming in. I wasn't her business partner anymore. So all of a sudden, I'm like, okay, but then the showroom that I took her in hired me as the director of sales.

• 32:49Sam Fragoso?

  Oh.

• 32:50Speaker 01

  It was called apropos and the showroom was Uri Alter and he would say like, you owe me everything because of me. I'm like, oh, of course, Uri. I got fired from him. They had a consultant company. Anyway.

• 33:00Sam Fragoso?

  You got yourself fired.

• 33:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, because I told the consultant I hate Uri.

• 33:06Speaker 01

  Or he fired me. I hugged him.

• 33:08Sam Fragoso?

  But there was something in you that he was like, she's gonna fight for it.

• 33:12Speaker 01

  I work hard. I work really hard and that's kind of the thing. I work really hard, like herding cattle every summer of my life. So I have a drive that very few people, I can work people under the table, which is not something to be proud because I rather people work smarter.

• 33:27Sam Fragoso?

  Why is it not something to be proud of?

• 33:28Speaker 01

  Because it's like, at one point you have to learn, it's good at a certain age to do those things. And then there's a point that you need to be able to like master the, this is very much from my dad, like I'll go in and we will just fix what we need to. Nothing is like too above or too low for us, you know, like anyways, the showroom hired me and I was the director of sales. And I was representing like Oxportif, was a French brand of sneakers. It had its moment in hip hop too. And I also started my own brand and told Uri to represent it. But Uri didn't like it. I didn't tell him it was my brand. So on November third. Because I have the pictures of 2003.

• 34:13Speaker 01

  I was in a place called Designers and Agents in L.A., which is like completely like a schmata, but nicely done.

• 34:20Sam Fragoso?

  What is that word? I don't know this word.

• 34:21Speaker 01

  You don't know this word in Yiddish?

• 34:23Sam Fragoso?

  I've heard you say it before.

• 34:24Speaker 01

  It's like a garment word. It's a garment district. Like, my fashion education was not in Central Saint Martins. It wasn't in Milan. It was like in the schmata. The garment district of New York was always like a hub for fashion. They would copy the designs in Europe and make it here.

• 34:40Sam Fragoso?

  Mm-hmm.

• 34:40Speaker 01

  And it's a Yiddish word. Like, you know, you slept the schmata with huspa. That's why I like saying. But you just roll your sleeves and work. And so I started my brand that I showed to Uri and he said, no. I took it anyway, like the T-shirts and everything. I took it to this L.A. trade show that I was, you know, in charge of for the showroom. And I put all the stuff for my brand in the designer that had told me we're not partners anymore. So I actually put all my clothes on her stuff. That day, my colleagues were like, you're getting fired. You're so getting fired. It's called having huspa. Like, don't ask me how I did these things, but I did it. Like, I look back and I'm like, what a type of insane person.

• 35:24Speaker 01

  And I started selling because I knew if Uri would know that I sold, he wouldn't care. So when Uri came, I said, I have $8,000 in sales.

• 35:32Sam Fragoso?

  Wow.

• 35:33Speaker 01

  And that's how the whole thing started.

• 35:34Sam Fragoso?

  Do you need to be insane to do the job you've done?

• 35:37Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 35:38Sam Fragoso?

  Is there any sane fashion designer?

• 35:41Speaker 01

  Let me put it this way. I love problem solving. Problem solving is a type of mentality. And people that like problem solving have a certain mania. And by the way, for the record, I have no pathology diagnosed from all the therapists that I've seen.

• 35:58Speaker 01

  A lot of neurodiversity. We can play what my neurologist said about my brain, too.

• 36:02Sam Fragoso?

  I think legally, we can't put that in here.

• 36:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:05Sam Fragoso?

  What did you learn from running Candela that you would later apply to Gabriela Hearst?

• 36:09Speaker 01

  I mean, all the mistakes. I had a hit with GH very early on, which was our bag. And I had learned that the type of product I wanted to do, which is work with the best ingredients possible, because I knew that's where my passion was after I've done a lot of things. And to create that, you can't have a wholesale model.

• 36:32Sam Fragoso?

  Well, okay, so let's go back here. You run this company for about a decade and you said in vogue, quote, "I couldn't work with more crappy product. I was in my late 30s and they were asking to make cheaper and cheaper product."

• 36:45Speaker 01

  Remember the 2008 crisis, wholesale started to go into this turmoil. So what happens? The wholesalers start telling you what you need to design and that's like a spiral. And they start ordering you and it's cheaper and then you're stuck with all this product and it's a vicious cycle. And at the same time, I inherited my father's ranch and there's like this discrepancy that's happening between the life that I was brought up with, with what I'm doing.

• 37:11Sam Fragoso?

  That's in 2011. Your father passes away. As you were going back once a month, did something about being back there inform how you wanted to create Gabriela Hearst?

• 37:22Speaker 01

  Yes. First of all, biggest wake up call is like, I've been running away all my life from running a ranch, from this life. And all of a sudden, it's like, why was I running away? This is kind of cool. That's where I learned about quality, because not from something pretentious, but things have to be of quality to last in the middle of nowhere. So I give an example that it was one of my experiences when I was taking over the ranch. In August in Uruguay, it's cold, so there's a water tank in the bathroom of my father that's now my bathroom. And there was this like little hot water that would come out, out of this water tank for like a minute. So like in August, the three days I was there, I would just not shower because it was so bloody cold.

• 38:07Speaker 01

  So I asked my foreman, can we take that water tank and buy a new one, please? And he would be like, hmm, let me think where I can put that one, because you're so much in the middle of nowhere that you cannot just discard things. You cannot just throw away stuff. This was the contrast that came all together to me. Here we are in, in New York, throwing things, buying stuff, plastic business. And then all of a sudden, it's like, like I'm telling my foreman and he won't do it till we find a place where to put the other. And it's just that common sense.

• 38:38Sam Fragoso?

  Right.

• 38:39Speaker 01

  And that's how the values of Gabriela Hearst were long-term view and sustainability, and they still are.

• 38:46Speaker 01

  Because of the ranching.

• 38:48Sam Fragoso?

  Just that moment, like a very practical, you want a warm shower. They say, well, where are we going to put it? And suddenly 10 years of work in New York just goes up in smoke.

• 39:01Speaker 01

  There's a start a discrepancy happening inside of you where it's like, this is not where you need to be. And the one thing I also knew, they would be very hard to elevate Candela because we started it from $700. So I knew that it was difficult to elevate a price point. It's easier to have like a brand and then like people like downgrade it. But to do from here to elevation, it's hard like that doesn't really. So I knew if I wanted to do tailoring and I knew if I wanted to do these things that it had to be something new. But I didn't know if it was going to work, Gabriela Hearst. So at the beginning I had both and then Gabriela Hearst took off and it ate all the employees from Candela. So Candela is like this dormant entity.

• 39:42Sam Fragoso?

  So we're talking around the 10 year anniversary of Gabriela Hearst. Candela took $2,100 to start. How much money did you need to start Gabriela Hearst?

• 39:52Speaker 01

  The budget was $500,000.

• 39:54Sam Fragoso?

  $500,000 and you put that in?

• 39:57Speaker 01

  Well, it was my husband.

• 39:58Sam Fragoso?

  Your husband gave you the loan?

• 39:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:59Sam Fragoso?

  For 6% interest.

• 40:00Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 40:01Sam Fragoso?

  Were you anxious about that?

• 40:02Speaker 01

  I was very careful, but I had a very clear idea. You know, all these years of Candela, people would say the woman need to be very defined, like the woman needs to be crystallized. And you need to have like this hero product. And I had two partners. It wasn't really only my vision, right? And this time Gabriela Hearst was like the vision of this woman that I wanted to dress. And I look back at that collection and I can look back to all the different collections I've made. But I really want to wear that first collection. Like it was just so, like, I mean, I showed it in sketches to Barney's and they were like, okay, we want first dibs on this. And they took it and they were my exclusive partners. So it was really tight for a first collection. But it was tight because I had all those years of experience before.

• 40:45Sam Fragoso?

  You had the decade of turbulence.

• 40:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I had thought of every single thing, like the hardware was all designed. What did the hardware mean? Like it was well executed too. We were five doing that. We were not even a big team. I was pregnant. I actually ran into the fit model. Recently that I used to wear and say, do you remember when the first prototypes came and you were crying? I completely have forgotten about it.

• 41:09Sam Fragoso?

  Does that happen often? How often you get the prototypes of something and then you go, oh, my God, what's happening here?

• 41:16Speaker 01

  First of all, I have a very skeleton crew. It's always me with the designer of that category. And sometimes things come exactly how the sketch. But I've had moments that I don't even see a full prototype. I see a piece of a prototype and I'm like, I have nightmares about these things. Like the disturbance of not being communicated right is like really frustrating.

• 41:37Sam Fragoso?

  From the beginning, your focus on not being part of fast fashion or making environmentally friendly work. You've called it honest luxury.

• 41:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:47Sam Fragoso?

  Which I think like for most people, honest luxury is a little bit of an oxymoron. It's a tough thing for people to understand because of what this industry has done to the planet.

• 41:56Speaker 01

  Exactly. I want people to buy things of quality. You don't need to buy 10 things, but just buy one sweater. Just buy something that's good of quality, that's supposed to last you there. Even that choice was today about my son's backpack. I'm like, let's buy one good backpack that will last him all as long as we can during the school year. Let's not buy him like a cheap backpack. Let's go to R A and buy a proper backpack. My choice is always like, let's buy something that's last.

• 42:22Sam Fragoso?

  You've said time and time again, long term view and sustainability are the top two priorities. That runs like completely counter to every other brand.

• 42:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know.

• 42:30Sam Fragoso?

  I mean, planned obsolescence is basically the mindset for most companies of any product. But you think of your work differently. You think of it as an heirloom.

• 42:41Speaker 01

  Yes, because it should be. I'm shocked of how there's certain mega brands in our industry that are not doing well.

• 42:51Sam Fragoso?

  Like which?

• 42:52Speaker 01

  I'm not gonna name names, but like just kind of look at their stock market. And I would go to the window and look at the product. The quality of everything looks like it's not there anymore. The hero product that you're supposed to protect it with your soul.

• 43:07Sam Fragoso?

  And what's a hero product?

• 43:08Speaker 01

  It's like the thing that you're you're known for.

• 43:11Sam Fragoso?

  Okay, okay.

• 43:12Speaker 01

  Like was no offense made for Zara, you know, they're just charging you a lot. I know because the mills that I work with in Italy, they love us because we never ask for blends. Don't put polyester, don't put viscose. So we want pure stuff.

• 43:28Sam Fragoso?

  So you think these other luxury companies are charging for their name?

• 43:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, but the client is not stupid. We're like, we're in 2025. Like, there's a lot of information. The idea of fooling women is just, I can't do it.

• 43:43Sam Fragoso?

  The thing I wanted to ask you about is in every single press clipping about Gabriela Hearst, they always talk about the sustainability, that you're heralding this new era of fashion that has a low carbon footprint, is good for the environment, is where we need to go. Now, I've read all those things and I know you and I know that to be true. But then on the other end, the price is so high. And I suspect it's commensurate with the cost it takes.

• 44:12Speaker 01

  Becoming more and more expensive to make things.

• 44:14Sam Fragoso?

  How do you grapple with this idea of sustainability and who can and cannot afford it? How can we replicate your message downstream? Is it possible?

• 44:24Speaker 01

  Well, I I worked for a brand called Chloé, which depends on volume drivers. Imagine a pyramid. In the top of the pyramid, you have like the very crafty product, what we do at Gabriela Hearst. In the middle, you have more sweaters and things are a bit more industrialized. And then you have the volume drivers being like tote bags, sneakers, things that you need to like make a lot of. And those are the things that you have to make sustainable faster. So those we change. Because we turned the company around so that the sales were going up, but also the carbon footprint.

• 44:58Sam Fragoso?

  How did you do that?

• 44:59Speaker 01

  You look at the products and the ingredients that you're using. So it's like basics.

• 45:03Sam Fragoso?

  If it's so simple, then why don't more companies do that?

• 45:06Speaker 01

  Because they don't focus on it and because now it's not a trend, but it's quite simple. It's called paying attention. So for example, the tote that was made in cotton, that they would sell with the name of the brand all over, like thousands of them per week. Instead of being cotton, we changed it to vertically grown linen from Europe. Then the denim was all recycled. The sneaker that we created, it saved 80% more water than the previous sneakers and produced. Like thirty or forty percent less greenhouse gases. And that sneaker was a hit. So it's just like you bring a footprint down of the product that you do. And there's always waste. And it happened to me, like, I was just using this bag, our Gabriela Hurst bag. And I was like, what is this like little plastic attachment that I just found in our bags?

• 45:49Speaker 01

  And it sent a picture to the team, like, what is this plastic thing doing here? We don't need this. This is unnecessary. But it's like you have to be paying attention. And having a strong, sustainable team. When I went in Chloe, they had no one. And by when I left, it was thirteen people.

• 46:05Sam Fragoso?

  The thing you said earlier, though, is it's not trendy. Now, tell me about that. You're saying these companies will do the right thing so long as they can be perceived as doing the right thing at a trendy time.

• 46:16Speaker 01

  Not all. Let's not generalize. They're very big companies because I've had the opportunity to speak with a lot of different brands and much bigger brands with the sustainability teams.

• 46:25Sam Fragoso?

  Who do you think's doing it right right now?

• 46:27Speaker 01

  I think Chanel is doing it right. They're not talking about it, but from what I know, they're doing it right. Patagonia, obviously. Nike was the first people to use recycled polyester on their products, like early 2000s. But everyone has the same issue. We have to remember, and this is where I need to clarify this because a lot of people are confused. The main issue we have is where we draw the energy to make this product. That is the main issue. And this idea we're going to consume less energy is false. So this is why my whole kind of path on sustainability really went into like energy.

• 47:01Sam Fragoso?

  What does that look like?

• 47:02Speaker 01

  I mean, today we could have clean, abundant energy if we would be using nuclear. I saw somebody the other day with like a cap that says, it's make America nuclear again. I was like, I don't disagree with that concept because we are here because of the burning of fossil fuels. Let's not be fooled with anything else. Climate change is because of burning of fossil fuels.

• 47:22Sam Fragoso?

  You have gone all over the world to give this message. I've seen you on CNN. I've seen you at the ACLU. I've seen you just about everywhere from on high. Pay attention to this. Do you think people hear you?

• 47:34Speaker 01

  I think during my fusion research, when we did the collection, I spoke with somebody that helped found Commonwealth Fusion System. And he said, energy is a scale business. So if there's scale, there's going to be money. And then my research on it shows that this is a business model that's going to work because we are going to need the energy. And we know the limitations of fossil fuels. And again, most of our choices of humanity, in my humble opinion, from, you know, somebody that comes from Schmatta and Uruguay, is the fact that we've done all these options because of the name of convenience. It's not out of cruelty or mean thinking. It's convenience. It's just being comfortable.

• 48:14Sam Fragoso?

  Right.

• 48:15Speaker 01

  And that's kind of, you want to put me in a nutshell? Like, one thing I try to do is never be comfortable. If I get too comfortable, I have to shake things up.

• 48:24Sam Fragoso?

  Well, in your clothes, you want to be comfortable.

• 48:26Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 48:26Sam Fragoso?

  But the work to make those clothes is nothing but discomfort and frustration and hours and hours of laboring.

• 48:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. But my point is that styrofoam should be banned. We know it produces cancer and it will never leave this planet. And we still use it.

• 48:43Sam Fragoso?

  In 2020, three months before the pandemic, you said on the Time Sensitive Podcast, 10 years from now, when there's water shortages, who cares about fashion, really?

• 48:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's still happening.

• 48:54Sam Fragoso?

  Like, now that that's five years removed from that quote, you've lived through a pandemic. Your company has grown. How are you thinking about how you want to spend your time in the future?

• 49:06Speaker 01

  Definitely where we're going with Gorilla Hearst, I'm very excited about because I know we have something that we're very proud of. And still, we're growing in a year where most of people are not growing. And I have a dream, a very specific dream for Gorilla Hearst.

• 49:22Sam Fragoso?

  What's the dream?

• 49:23Speaker 01

  I can't say it here.

• 49:25Sam Fragoso?

  Well, it's manifestation.

• 49:28Speaker 01

  Well, I see one day Gorilla Hurs being a foundation, like Rolex or Paul Newman. So my dream is to get, maybe I don't get there, but to be able to be of service to the environment.

• 49:42Sam Fragoso?

  Hmm. And what would you want to do with it?

• 49:44Speaker 01

  There's a lot of things to help in the world. I work with Save the Children and the data are horrifying. And now with the stop of USAID and all, there's a lot to do in the world.

• 49:55Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah.

• 49:55Speaker 01

  So I want, if I create, and this I knew since I was a kid, that if I create something of certain value, I would like it to be to help others. And I know this sounds very altruistic, but somebody has to do it.

• 50:09Sam Fragoso?

  You know, it does sound altruistic. And I remember when we did that benefit at the Carlisle.

• 50:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:15Sam Fragoso?

  And I heard you gave that speech for Save the Children. I thought, okay, I just met you. A lot of people give nice speeches and then they move on.

• 50:25Sam Fragoso?

  And in the two years of knowing you, you're like a dog on a bone. You cannot move on. The moment you want to do something to bring it back full circle, you just don't let it go.

• 50:36Speaker 01

  Because I know about our interconnectivity. And I am very aware of it, that the suffering that happens somewhere is also happening to all of us. It's something that in order for me to have these ideas and say this, and I want to do that, I have to be connected. And in a natural way, I am connected to that. And success for success, like just being successful. Oh, she's this incredible fashion designer, whatever, whatever. Quite an empty thing.

• 51:08Sam Fragoso?

  Hmm.

• 51:08Speaker 01

  But if people would know how good it feels to be purposeful and to do things that help others, like even if it's just helping a friend. I have a friend that I just did something and it just, I, the pure happiness that I feel, it's something very rewarding for me.

• 51:26Sam Fragoso?

  You know, it's funny you say that because I've heard you talk about that show, The Bear.

• 51:30Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 51:30Sam Fragoso?

  And you said The Bear is really good insight into what it's like to do my job. The community, the team part of it, the workload, the hours. Is that because both of these industries, fashion and food, they're service industries? And I think that seems like the thing that you keep coming back to. And probably why it takes so much of you is that you are constantly in search and in service of others.

• 51:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, I have it just like I'm a little kid.

• 51:58Sam Fragoso?

  But, you know, everyone in the bear, especially Karmi, is fucking miserable and it takes everything.

• 52:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, but they're not Latin.

• 52:10Speaker 01

  They're not Latin. In America, everybody has like this idea that everyone has to be happy. In South America, we're so used to like emotions be like one time you're good. Like it's like in the same day, you can have all these different emotions going through. There's not such a hang up on happiness and not living to a standard.

• 52:29Sam Fragoso?

  It's not something you think about.

• 52:30Speaker 01

  No, and I do what I do because I'm also know the things that give me pure joy, which is like a good coffee, sketching. Like I know since I'm very little that if I have a pencil and a pen, I can be very satisfied. Like I get in a moment of like I'm in sand when I'm sketching. But I ask myself your question, which is like, why do I do everything I do? I'm always adding a social component to like helping this organization, doing this, doing that. Why do I complicate it in a way? The process by doing that. And I realize maybe it's like my own observation or not. But to do what I do, I have to acknowledge the suffering that's going on in other parts to make what I do real.

• 53:15Speaker 01

  So I'm honoring what other people are going through by working. Like I'll give you a perfect example. Madres and Artesanas, which is a non-for-profit that I work with in Bolivia, which is modelers and craft women. They sent me the picture yesterday and I would see all of them like crocheting these stars, each of them crocheting these little stars that are going to be sweaters and pieces for the next collection. Out of that stock cashmere that we had, and it's all done by hand. And it's so beautiful. And you know that these women, some of them are victims of domestic abuse. And once they start earning more money than their spouses, the abuse stops. This is what I learned from the woman that organized the co-op. And it's a pain in the butt to produce in Bolivia, to import from Bolivia.

• 54:00Speaker 01

  But you want to do those things because it's just the right thing to do.

• 54:03Sam Fragoso?

  If you didn't do those things, would you feel guilty or something for having succeeded the way you have?

• 54:08Speaker 01

  I don't know if I would feel guilty or not as full, you know? Like, it can feel a little empty.

• 54:15Sam Fragoso?

  Right.

• 54:16Speaker 01

  If it doesn't have a purpose. And I like how it feels, you know? There's this east-west view of creating, right? In the West, it's always about the individual, Van Gogh, Rembrandt. In the East, there's the collective form of art. And this idea of the collective is very rewarding for me, like, working with my team. Like, they're all badasses. It's like the Navy SEALs, you know? It's like, we're like three crazy people, like, you know, like Shirley, my seamstress. The other day, they tried to mug her, and it's good luck. Go to the ATM, you're not getting my cash. I mean, I work with really cool people that inspire me every day.

• 54:55Sam Fragoso?

  After one last break, the end of my conversation with Gabriela Hearst.

• 55:17Sam Fragoso?

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• 56:01Sam Fragoso?

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• 56:35Sam Fragoso?

  My last thing for you. You have this new collection coming up that's gonna debut in Paris. It's inspired by tarot cards. So there's tarot cards in there, and then there's sketches, and then there's kind of like these notes to self, these affirmations.

• 56:48Speaker 01

  What did you find?

• 56:50Sam Fragoso?

  And there's one note that really stuck out to me, and I thought maybe you'd want to read it before we go.

• 56:57Speaker 01

  You always knew, and I know GH will be okay. It is your life project. It's guarded and protected by spiritual forces. Oh, you're gonna make me cry. Family ancestors, love and sacrifice. GH will help a lot of people. GH will be a... value for good for many. This is all making me stronger.

• 57:22Sam Fragoso?

  Why does that make you cry?

• 57:24Speaker 01

  Because it's really genuinely what makes me very satisfied. Like, listen, dressing up makes me really happy. I wouldn't do this as my medium. This is what I know, what I do. But it is very rewarding for me, the idea that having the ability and the luxury to be able to help others.

• 57:43Sam Fragoso?

  And that part at the top there about it being protected?

• 57:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:48Sam Fragoso?

  What do you mean by that?

• 57:49Speaker 01

  I know that it's protected. I never worry too much about GH. Of course, I worry in the day-to-day, the short-term worry, but the long-term, I know it will sustain and survive. And I wanted to continue past my this existence, right? That it'll go for other generations.

• 58:07Sam Fragoso?

  I think it's an amazing note.

• 58:08Speaker 01

  I mean, I can't believe you picked this up. It's like, it really is like crazy.

• 58:13Sam Fragoso?

  It's the only note in the 115 pages that breaks the fourth wall.

• 58:17Speaker 01

  Really?

• 58:17Sam Fragoso?

  It's the only note that actually feels like you're writing it not just for you.

• 58:23Speaker 01

  I, you know, I knew this was gonna be exciting. Um, but yeah, I've always written, you know, like I have journals and journals and journals.

• 58:30Sam Fragoso?

  My last question, when you started Gabriela Hearst, you said, I want to create a company that didn't exist when I was in my twenties. A company that I could become older and a company that would dress me, that could imagine me older than 24. And you said, there's something fascinating about the women I work with. They have great armor, but their inside is very fragile.

• 58:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was actual phrase that I wrote when I did the brand book. I imagined that armor, that my clothes was an armor to protect that soft. And I think it's a little bit of my mom, right? Like she, this tough woman, but very soft emotionally.

• 59:08Sam Fragoso?

  When I read that, I thought, this sounds like you're making work about, for and towards a mother who you first remember falling off a Bronco, teeth falling out, blood everywhere. Is there any part of you that thought the young girl sketching in the back of a class would be where you are in this moment?

• 59:28Speaker 01

  I didn't imagine the actual specifics of it, but I did imagine, my mom did. My mom saw me, like she would tell me she would have visions of me like going into buildings with a portfolio. And she's like, I don't know what you're doing, but I have saw these visions.

• 59:42Sam Fragoso?

  When did she say that?

• 59:43Speaker 01

  When I was in like late teens and it kind of happens, those situations of me going to these big buildings and doing this stuff and. And I I had them with my son, too. I had those visions too, but different.

• 59:55Sam Fragoso?

  And has your mom gone to these shows?

• 59:58Speaker 01

  My mom has never gone to one of my shows. The biggest compliment I got about my clothes was from my mom saying, "Your clothes look so real, where everything else looks fake." And this is not somebody that's like trained in fashion or... But imagine when you're like in Uruguay, in developed nations, it's flooded of polyester and viscose. And like the nicest thing you can get is sarah. Right now, she's like, "It's so hard to find something that doesn't have polyester." And so where she sees my materials, they remind her of like the materials she had during her childhood.

• 1:00:29Sam Fragoso?

  When you say it's armor, it implies that you need armor to be protected from something.

• 1:00:35Speaker 01

  Yes, especially a woman.

• 1:00:36Sam Fragoso?

  So tell me, in 2025, how you think about Gabriela Hearst as a form of protection? The things you make, the way you move through the world.

• 1:00:46Speaker 01

  I mean, it's very hard to compute the reality that we're in, but I'm very aware of what we are. And I'm determined to not be frozen by fear and to do the right thing and to be alluring people with beauty and desire and joy. But, you know, democracy, women's rights and climate are very important to me.

• 1:01:11Sam Fragoso?

  Gabriela Hearst, always a pleasure, and this was a real joy to do.

• 1:01:15Speaker 01

  Oh, thank you. I've always loved being with you. And having an intelligent conversation is always a privilege. So thank you.

• 1:01:22Sam Fragoso?

  Much love.

• 1:01:23Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:01:55Sam Fragoso?

  And that's our show. If you enjoyed today's episode with Gabriela Hearst, be sure to share the program on social media at Talk Easy Pod. You can also leave us five stars on Spotify, a review on Apple, email it to a friend. Do people still do that? Do they email things to friends? I don't know. Whatever you can do to spread the word, it really does help us continue making this program each and every Sunday. I want to give a special thanks this week to the team at GH, Stephanie, Yessenya, Thomas. I also want to thank Bobby, you know who you are, and of course, our guest today, Gabriela Hearst. You can learn more about her spring/summer 2026 collection, her advocacy work, and a whole lot more at our website

• 1:02:40Sam Fragoso?

  at TalkEasyPod.com. For more episodes, I'd recommend Laura Dern, Julia Garner, and Questlove. To hear those and more Lemonada podcasts, listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you like to listen. You can also subscribe to Lemonada Premium for exclusive bonus content and ad-free listening. Just hit the subscribe button on Apple or head to lemonadapremium.com. Talk Easy is produced by Caroline Reebok. Our executive producer is Janix Abraha. Today's talk was edited by Lindsay Ellis and mixed by Andrew Vastola. It was recorded at Spotify in New York City. Our music is by Dylan Peck. Our illustrations are by Chris Shano. Photographs today come from Roger Gallegos. Research assistants, Pierce Harvey. This

• 1:03:23Sam Fragoso?

  episode was made in partnership with the good people at Lemonada Media, and I'm Sam Fragoso. Thank you for listening to Talk Easy. I'll see you back here next Sunday with a brand new episode. Until then, stay safe and so long.

• 1:03:46Speaker 02

  I'm Dan Heath. On What It's Like to Be, I interview people about their jobs. Here's a married couple that drives a long haul truck together.

• 1:03:54Speaker 03

  We backed up and they loaded fresh dead rats.

• 1:03:57Speaker 02

  I mean, how many rats would you guess were back there?

• 1:04:00Speaker 03

  There were 32,000 pounds of them.

• 1:04:02Speaker 02

  32,000 pounds of frozen dead rats.

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  That's it.

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  Find out what it's like to be a long haul trucker, a couples therapist, or an FBI agent, all on the podcast What It's Like to Be.

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