Pod Insights Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso Does Fashion Have a Future? Designer Gabriela Hearst is Threading the Needle. About this episode 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).
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Transcript 11,742 words · 5 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:21 Sam Fragoso? This is Talk Easy. I'm Sam Fragoso. Welcome to the show.
0:38 Sam 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
1:23 Sam 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
2:08 Sam 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.
2:39 Sam Fragoso? This is Gabriela Hearst.
2:57 Sam Fragoso? Gabriela Hearst, welcome to the show.
3:00 Speaker 01 Sam.
3:01 Sam Fragoso? This has been a long time in the making.
3:03 Speaker 01 Yes, since the moment I asked you to be in the podcast.
3:08 Speaker 01 And you were like, you want to be in my podcast? I'm like, yes.
3:11 Sam 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.
3:21 Speaker 01 Yeah, kind of.
3:22 Sam Fragoso? How can I describe what you work in, if it's not fashion?
3:25 Speaker 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.
4:08 Speaker 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.
4:18 Sam Fragoso? Why is it becoming harder now?
4:20 Speaker 01 Because quality has decreased, like in everything, in every single medium, like in food, to movies, to anything. The quality has decreased.
4:29 Sam 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?
4:48 Speaker 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.
5:06 Sam Fragoso? Okay, what are the primary stresses?
5:08 Speaker 01 Oh, my God, I have so many things.
5:09 Sam Fragoso? This is what we're here for.
5:11 Speaker 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.
5:22 Sam Fragoso? Do you need me to come cook for you guys?
5:24 Speaker 01 Yeah, maybe. No, we're in a hotel, so there's room service.
5:26 Sam Fragoso? Room service, okay.
5:27 Speaker 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.
5:40 Sam Fragoso? After another?
5:40 Speaker 01 Yeah.
5:41 Sam Fragoso? It seems like you like it this way.
5:43 Speaker 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.
6:08 Sam Fragoso? Long before.
6:09 Speaker 01 Long before globalization.
6:10 Sam Fragoso? There was one spot left in the school in Australia.
6:13 Speaker 01 Oh, my God, you did your research.
6:15 Sam Fragoso? And you applied, you got it.
6:17 Speaker 01 Yeah.
6:18 Sam Fragoso? And then you did the presentation again for your parents.
6:20 Speaker 01 Yes.
6:21 Sam Fragoso? And even they couldn't stop you.
6:23 Speaker 01 They could not stop me.
6:24 Sam 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?
7:08 Speaker 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.
7:19 Sam Fragoso? She said, this is where it happened.
7:20 Speaker 01 Yeah, and she knew it because she was actually taking the pill. And that's the day she didn't take the pill.
7:25 Sam Fragoso? Wow.
7:26 Speaker 01 And I came to this world very easy, like 30 minutes I was in. And yeah, I was easy baby.
7:34 Sam Fragoso? Were you an easy child to raise?
7:36 Speaker 01 Yes, I was, I was, I was definitely, I was very different than everyone around me.
7:42 Sam Fragoso? How do you mean?
7:43 Speaker 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.
7:54 Sam Fragoso? And your grandmother raised you then, right?
7:56 Speaker 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.
8:05 Sam Fragoso? Throwback Thursday to when I looked terrible.
8:08 Speaker 01 Yeah, no.
8:08 Sam Fragoso? Gabriela always looked amazing.
8:10 Speaker 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.
8:34 Sam 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.
8:47 Speaker 01 Yeah.
8:48 Sam Fragoso? Do you remember the first sketch you put to paper?
8:51 Speaker 01 No, I probably don't have conscience of that.
8:54 Sam Fragoso? It was that early?
8:55 Speaker 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.
9:36 Sam 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?
9:42 Speaker 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.
10:05 Sam Fragoso? What kind of style did your mother and father have?
10:07 Speaker 01 Gaucho, traditional gaucho. And I think that's what influences my design.
10:12 Sam Fragoso? Mm-hmm.
10:13 Speaker 01 There is a uniform to that, and there's a tradition to that.
10:17 Sam Fragoso? Isn't there a national holiday for gauchos?
10:19 Speaker 01 Yes, there's a gaucho national holiday.
10:21 Sam Fragoso? What would happen at school on those days?
10:24 Speaker 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.
10:35 Sam Fragoso? So they would bring in the photo and then the kids would would draw it? Is that what they would do?
10:39 Speaker 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.
10:49 Sam Fragoso? Did your mother fit into that?
10:51 Speaker 01 My mom was OG gaucho, was more gaucho than my father.
10:54 Sam Fragoso? Really?
10:55 Speaker 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.
11:40 Sam Fragoso? What did you think of that?
11:42 Speaker 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.
11:52 Sam Fragoso? My understanding in reading about you, like your parents each had their own ranch.
11:57 Speaker 01 Yes.
11:58 Sam Fragoso? Did that happen before or after they divorced?
12:01 Speaker 01 They happened before.
12:02 Sam Fragoso? And what age were you when that happened?
12:04 Speaker 01 Seven years old.
12:05 Sam Fragoso? You were seven?
12:06 Speaker 01 Yes.
12:07 Sam Fragoso? Was that common where you grew up, parents divorcing?
12:10 Speaker 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.
12:19 Sam Fragoso? Right, they could do as they please.
12:21 Speaker 01 Exactly, and my mother married three times.
12:24 Sam Fragoso? And what did you think of your parents splitting up?
12:28 Speaker 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?
12:42 Sam Fragoso? They made the mistake.
12:43 Speaker 01 Yes.
12:44 Sam Fragoso? Now I have to sit with the therapist.
12:45 Speaker 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.
13:18 Sam Fragoso? Right.
13:18 Speaker 01 We're here.
13:19 Sam Fragoso? Oh, you're saying just being alive in general?
13:21 Speaker 01 Being alive and being a human.
13:23 Sam Fragoso? A miracle.
13:24 Speaker 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.
13:32 Sam Fragoso? It's a statistical improbability.
13:34 Speaker 01 Yeah, exactly. That's what I'm trying to say.
13:36 Sam Fragoso? Okay, you finished school, you're 21 years old, you've saved up $5,000.
13:41 Speaker 01 Oh, yes.
13:41 Sam Fragoso? And you tell your parents, I want to go to Paris and I want a model. And they say what?
13:48 Speaker 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.
14:03 Sam Fragoso? Why do you think he said that?
14:05 Speaker 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.
14:23 Sam Fragoso? And you were like, well, this is my fate.
14:25 Speaker 01 Yeah.
14:26 Sam Fragoso? Is that how you felt?
14:28 Speaker 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.
14:50 Sam Fragoso? Right. This is like the late nineties.
14:52 Speaker 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.
15:36 Speaker 01 You had opera singers, ballet dancers, and I made it through pure grit.
15:41 Sam 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
16:05 Speaker 01 Yeah.
16:05 Sam 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?
16:20 Speaker 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.
17:04 Speaker 01 I mean, really.
17:05 Sam Fragoso? I've known you for almost two years now.
17:07 Speaker 01 Yeah.
17:07 Sam 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.
17:20 Speaker 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
18:03 Speaker 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.
18:39 Sam Fragoso? Why?
18:39 Speaker 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.
18:59 Sam Fragoso? And when did you know you had a problem?
19:02 Speaker 01 Oh, I knew it before.
19:03 Sam Fragoso? You knew it before?
19:04 Speaker 01 Yeah, that's why it was a bad idea. I knew that I had eating disorders, plus I wanted to be a model.
19:07 Sam Fragoso? How do you know something like that?
19:11 Speaker 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.
19:53 Speaker 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.
19:59 Sam Fragoso? Did you have help?
20:00 Speaker 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.
20:11 Sam Fragoso? So nothing was more healing and helpful than art?
20:14 Speaker 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.
20:37 Sam Fragoso? So when you go to New York in two thousand?
20:40 Speaker 01 Yes.
20:41 Sam Fragoso? Tell me how art began to save you. What did that look like?
20:44 Speaker 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.
21:18 Sam Fragoso? So the heartbreak catapults you to America and do an acting class that it wasn't for you.
21:24 Speaker 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.
21:50 Sam Fragoso? Mm hmm.
21:50 Speaker 01 And it's the most incredible sensation.
21:54 Sam Fragoso? You remember that right now.
21:55 Speaker 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.
22:01 Sam Fragoso? So after two years of acting.
22:03 Speaker 01 Mm hmm.
22:04 Sam 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?
22:12 Speaker 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.
22:53 Sam 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.
23:03 Speaker 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.
23:12 Sam Fragoso? Yeah, we're gonna call you back.
23:13 Speaker 01 But you know, things are like an endurance race.
23:15 Sam Fragoso? Yeah, and you're a marathon runner.
23:17 Speaker 01 Not marathon, but long distance. I've done long distance running.
23:20 Sam Fragoso? I meant metaphorically.
23:21 Speaker 01 Yeah, but I've done long distance running.
23:25 Speaker 01 Not metaphorically.
23:26 Sam Fragoso? Make sure it's on the record.
23:27 Speaker 01 Yeah, like it's on the record in the timeline. I've done 10K races.
23:31 Sam Fragoso? That wasn't on the Gabriela Hearst website.
23:33 Speaker 01 No, I shouldn't. I mean, it's too much, yeah.
23:35 Sam Fragoso? We gotta add it.
23:35 Speaker 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.
23:44 Sam Fragoso? But you were good at dating men in sports.
23:47 Speaker 01 Yes, but is it dating men in sport or is it dating people with passions?
23:53 Sam Fragoso? That's a question.
23:54 Speaker 01 Yeah, because passion, dating or friendship is the driver of life, right?
23:59 Sam Fragoso? The first time he got married, was it out of passion? Was he doing something that was passionate, that inspired you?
24:07 Speaker 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.
24:24 Sam Fragoso? You had twins?
24:25 Speaker 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.
25:09 Speaker 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.
25:31 Sam 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.
25:48 Speaker 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.
26:07 Sam Fragoso? Oh, wow.
26:08 Speaker 01 Also, we had three weddings, just our recommendations, don't have so many weddings.
26:11 Sam Fragoso? After the second one, you thought, let's go for the third?
26:14 Speaker 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.
26:25 Sam Fragoso? Were you trying to create a panic attack for yourself?
26:28 Speaker 01 No, I definitely like a party and dresses. So, that's for sure. Like, I was on point.
26:34 Sam Fragoso? I have no doubt the outfits were spectacular.
26:37 Speaker 01 And the food was great.
26:42 Sam Fragoso? We'll be right back with Gabrielle Hurst.
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30:12 Sam Fragoso? Let's go back to the work for a second.
30:14 Speaker 01 Yeah.
30:14 Sam Fragoso? The first company you started is a company called
30:17 Speaker 01 Candela.
30:18 Sam Fragoso? You started with two partners in Brooklyn that each gave you $700.
30:21 Speaker 01 We all put 700.
30:23 Sam 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.
30:32 Speaker 01 Yes.
30:32 Sam Fragoso? How does that happen?
30:35 Speaker 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.
30:52 Sam Fragoso? And what's silk screening?
30:54 Speaker 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.
31:15 Sam Fragoso? You were 400 in the bread.
31:16 Speaker 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.
31:38 Sam Fragoso? Yeah.
31:38 Speaker 01 In like that schmuck stuff.
31:40 Sam 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.
31:56 Speaker 01 Got fired.
31:57 Sam Fragoso? Yeah, you got fired?
31:58 Speaker 01 Yeah, worked as a hostess.
31:59 Sam Fragoso? Did you have any trouble acclimating to the world of fashion in New York? Did people treat you badly?
32:07 Speaker 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.
32:49 Sam Fragoso? Oh.
32:50 Speaker 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.
33:00 Sam Fragoso? You got yourself fired.
33:01 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah, because I told the consultant I hate Uri.
33:06 Speaker 01 Or he fired me. I hugged him.
33:08 Sam Fragoso? But there was something in you that he was like, she's gonna fight for it.
33:12 Speaker 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.
33:27 Sam Fragoso? Why is it not something to be proud of?
33:28 Speaker 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.
34:13 Speaker 01 I was in a place called Designers and Agents in L.A., which is like completely like a schmata, but nicely done.
34:20 Sam Fragoso? What is that word? I don't know this word.
34:21 Speaker 01 You don't know this word in Yiddish?
34:23 Sam Fragoso? I've heard you say it before.
34:24 Speaker 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.
34:40 Sam Fragoso? Mm-hmm.
34:40 Speaker 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.
35:24 Speaker 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.
35:32 Sam Fragoso? Wow.
35:33 Speaker 01 And that's how the whole thing started.
35:34 Sam Fragoso? Do you need to be insane to do the job you've done?
35:37 Speaker 01 For sure.
35:38 Sam Fragoso? Is there any sane fashion designer?
35:41 Speaker 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.
35:58 Speaker 01 A lot of neurodiversity. We can play what my neurologist said about my brain, too.
36:02 Sam Fragoso? I think legally, we can't put that in here.
36:04 Speaker 01 Yeah.
36:05 Sam Fragoso? What did you learn from running Candela that you would later apply to Gabriela Hearst?
36:09 Speaker 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.
36:32 Sam 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."
36:45 Speaker 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.
37:11 Sam 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?
37:22 Speaker 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.
38:07 Speaker 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.
38:38 Sam Fragoso? Right.
38:39 Speaker 01 And that's how the values of Gabriela Hearst were long-term view and sustainability, and they still are.
38:46 Speaker 01 Because of the ranching.
38:48 Sam 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.
39:01 Speaker 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.
39:42 Sam 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?
39:52 Speaker 01 The budget was $500,000.
39:54 Sam Fragoso? $500,000 and you put that in?
39:57 Speaker 01 Well, it was my husband.
39:58 Sam Fragoso? Your husband gave you the loan?
39:59 Speaker 01 Yeah.
39:59 Sam Fragoso? For 6% interest.
40:00 Speaker 01 Yes.
40:01 Sam Fragoso? Were you anxious about that?
40:02 Speaker 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.
40:45 Sam Fragoso? You had the decade of turbulence.
40:47 Speaker 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.
41:09 Sam Fragoso? Does that happen often? How often you get the prototypes of something and then you go, oh, my God, what's happening here?
41:16 Speaker 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.
41:37 Sam Fragoso? From the beginning, your focus on not being part of fast fashion or making environmentally friendly work. You've called it honest luxury.
41:46 Speaker 01 Yeah.
41:47 Sam 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.
41:56 Speaker 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.
42:22 Sam 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.
42:30 Speaker 01 Yeah, I know.
42:30 Sam 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.
42:41 Speaker 01 Yes, because it should be. I'm shocked of how there's certain mega brands in our industry that are not doing well.
42:51 Sam Fragoso? Like which?
42:52 Speaker 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.
43:07 Sam Fragoso? And what's a hero product?
43:08 Speaker 01 It's like the thing that you're you're known for.
43:11 Sam Fragoso? Okay, okay.
43:12 Speaker 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.
43:28 Sam Fragoso? So you think these other luxury companies are charging for their name?
43:32 Speaker 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.
43:43 Sam 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.
44:12 Speaker 01 Becoming more and more expensive to make things.
44:14 Sam 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?
44:24 Speaker 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.
44:58 Sam Fragoso? How did you do that?
44:59 Speaker 01 You look at the products and the ingredients that you're using. So it's like basics.
45:03 Sam Fragoso? If it's so simple, then why don't more companies do that?
45:06 Speaker 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?
45:49 Speaker 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.
46:05 Sam 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.
46:16 Speaker 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.
46:25 Sam Fragoso? Who do you think's doing it right right now?
46:27 Speaker 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.
47:01 Sam Fragoso? What does that look like?
47:02 Speaker 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.
47:22 Sam 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?
47:34 Speaker 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.
48:14 Sam Fragoso? Right.
48:15 Speaker 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.
48:24 Sam Fragoso? Well, in your clothes, you want to be comfortable.
48:26 Speaker 01 Yes.
48:26 Sam Fragoso? But the work to make those clothes is nothing but discomfort and frustration and hours and hours of laboring.
48:33 Speaker 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.
48:43 Sam 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?
48:52 Speaker 01 Yeah, it's still happening.
48:54 Sam 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?
49:06 Speaker 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.
49:22 Sam Fragoso? What's the dream?
49:23 Speaker 01 I can't say it here.
49:25 Sam Fragoso? Well, it's manifestation.
49:28 Speaker 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.
49:42 Sam Fragoso? Hmm. And what would you want to do with it?
49:44 Speaker 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.
49:55 Sam Fragoso? Yeah.
49:55 Speaker 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.
50:09 Sam Fragoso? You know, it does sound altruistic. And I remember when we did that benefit at the Carlisle.
50:15 Speaker 01 Yeah.
50:15 Sam 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.
50:25 Sam 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.
50:36 Speaker 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.
51:08 Sam Fragoso? Hmm.
51:08 Speaker 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.
51:26 Sam Fragoso? You know, it's funny you say that because I've heard you talk about that show, The Bear.
51:30 Speaker 01 Mm hmm.
51:30 Sam 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.
51:56 Speaker 01 Yeah, I have it just like I'm a little kid.
51:58 Sam Fragoso? But, you know, everyone in the bear, especially Karmi, is fucking miserable and it takes everything.
52:06 Speaker 01 Yeah, but they're not Latin.
52:10 Speaker 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.
52:29 Sam Fragoso? It's not something you think about.
52:30 Speaker 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.
53:15 Speaker 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.
54:00 Speaker 01 But you want to do those things because it's just the right thing to do.
54:03 Sam Fragoso? If you didn't do those things, would you feel guilty or something for having succeeded the way you have?
54:08 Speaker 01 I don't know if I would feel guilty or not as full, you know? Like, it can feel a little empty.
54:15 Sam Fragoso? Right.
54:16 Speaker 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.
54:55 Sam Fragoso? After one last break, the end of my conversation with Gabriela Hearst.
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56:35 Sam 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.
56:48 Speaker 01 What did you find?
56:50 Sam 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.
56:57 Speaker 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.
57:22 Sam Fragoso? Why does that make you cry?
57:24 Speaker 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.
57:43 Sam Fragoso? And that part at the top there about it being protected?
57:47 Speaker 01 Yeah.
57:48 Sam Fragoso? What do you mean by that?
57:49 Speaker 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.
58:07 Sam Fragoso? I think it's an amazing note.
58:08 Speaker 01 I mean, I can't believe you picked this up. It's like, it really is like crazy.
58:13 Sam Fragoso? It's the only note in the 115 pages that breaks the fourth wall.
58:17 Speaker 01 Really?
58:17 Sam Fragoso? It's the only note that actually feels like you're writing it not just for you.
58:23 Speaker 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.
58:30 Sam 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.
58:53 Speaker 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.
59:08 Sam 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?
59:28 Speaker 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.
59:42 Sam Fragoso? When did she say that?
59:43 Speaker 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.
59:55 Sam Fragoso? And has your mom gone to these shows?
59:58 Speaker 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.
1:00:29 Sam Fragoso? When you say it's armor, it implies that you need armor to be protected from something.
1:00:35 Speaker 01 Yes, especially a woman.
1:00:36 Sam 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.
1:00:46 Speaker 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.
1:01:11 Sam Fragoso? Gabriela Hearst, always a pleasure, and this was a real joy to do.
1:01:15 Speaker 01 Oh, thank you. I've always loved being with you. And having an intelligent conversation is always a privilege. So thank you.
1:01:22 Sam Fragoso? Much love.
1:01:23 Speaker 01 Thank you.
1:01:55 Sam 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
1:02:40 Sam 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
1:03:23 Sam 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.
1:03:46 Speaker 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.
1:03:54 Speaker 03 We backed up and they loaded fresh dead rats.
1:03:57 Speaker 02 I mean, how many rats would you guess were back there?
1:04:00 Speaker 03 There were 32,000 pounds of them.
1:04:02 Speaker 02 32,000 pounds of frozen dead rats.
1:04:06 Speaker 03 That's it.
1:04:09 Speaker 02 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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1:04:59 Speaker 04 avoid echo chambers, and expand your worldview." So go to groundnews.com/rz. That's G-R-O-U-N-D-N-E-W-S dot com slash R-Z for 40% off unlimited access vantage plan. Get it yourself or gift it to someone who'd rather know than not. Use my link, groundnews.com/rz, so you get the discount and they know I sent you. If you're a fan of learning all sides of history, then Ground News is for you. One more time, groundnews.com/rz.
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