The Museum at FIT will honor Gabriela Hearst, creative director of her namesake fashion brand and French luxury fashion house Chloé, with the Couture Council Award for Artistry of Fashion.
The annual luncheon will take place Sept. 6 at the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center in New York. The event marks the start of New York Fashion Week and benefits the Museum at FIT, the only museum in New York dedicated solely to the art of fashion.
As WWD reported on Monday, Hearst is said to be stepping down from her role at Chloé after showing her spring 2024 collection during Paris Fashion Week. The parting is understood to be amicable, with Hearst wishing to focus on her fast-growing signature brand and other projects.
This year’s luncheon co-chairs are Lara Meiland-Shaw, board chair, Couture Council, and Melissa Mafrige Mithoff, vice chair, Couture Council, and Nordstrom is once again the presenting sponsor.
Past recipients of the Couture Council Award have been Maria Grazia Chiuri of Dior, Wes Gordon, Christian Louboutin, Narciso Rodriguez, Thom Browne, Albert Kriemler of Akris, Manolo Blahnik, Carolina Herrera, Michael Kors, Oscar de la Renta, Valentino, Karl Lagerfeld, Dries Van Noten, Isabel Toledo, Alber Elbaz and Ralph Rucci.
Hearst, a Uruguayan-born designer who is based in New York, is well known for her commitment to the environment and her focus on sustainability. Inspired by her time growing up on her family’s ranch in Uruguay, she launched her eponymous brand in 2015 as a way to create fashion with a slower pace and process. Her runway shows have featured deadstock fabrics and have eliminated plastic use, and her spring 2020 collection marked the first carbon-neutral runway show.
Hearst, who designs ready-to-wear, fine merino wool and cashmere knitwear, fine jewelry and handbags, launched a menswear collection in 2019. The designer has stores in New York, London and Le Bristol in Paris, and plans to open another store in September at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Los Angeles.
In addition to her own namesake business, Hearst was named creative director at Chloé in December 2020, and since her arrival has built the brand into a purpose-driven and socially engaged company, showing solid revenue gains. During her tenure, she has overhauled all the fabrics used for Chloé’s ready-to-wear, replacing cashmere with recycled cashmere and new denim with circular denim, made of 87 percent recycled cotton and 13 percent hemp, or 80 percent recycled cotton and 20 percent linen. Cotton linings in handbags have gradually been replaced with lower-impact linen. In October 2021, Chloé became the first European luxury maison to receive B Corp status.
In her last hurrah for Chloé, Hearst has lined up a collaboration between Chloé and actress Angelina Jolie, who recently revealed her intention to launch a fashion house.
In 2019, LVMH Luxury Ventures, the fund launched by French luxury giant LVMH to support emerging brands, invested in Hearst’s business, allowing the brand to expand its presence around the world.
Hearst has been recognized with numerous honors, including the 2016-17 International Woolmark Prize for Womenswear, and the American Womenswear Designer of the Year prize at the CFDA Fashion Awards in 2020. She was selected as one of the five honorees in the Environment category among the 15 Leaders of Change at the British Fashion Council’s Fashion Awards, and was also named as one of the Financial Times’ 25 most influential women of 2021.
In January 2021, Hearst designed an ivory dress, embroidered with each of the 50 state’s flowers, worn by First Lady Jill Biden for the 2021 presidential inauguration. It is now part of the Smithsonian’s First Ladies Collection.
“It is such an honor for the team and I to receive the 2023 Couture Council Award for Artistry of Fashion from one of the most prestigious design institutions,” Hearst said. “We take this recognition with the humbleness of dedicating ourselves more to the work. Designing with consciousness of others and our environment not only enriches us with purpose but also focuses our creativity,” she said.
Joyce F. Brown, president of FIT, said, “Gabriela Hearst has positioned herself as an eco-conscious designer who believes creating aspirational sustainable fashion is possible, and she has achieved this with each collection. Her vision — that a fashion brand can be successful while meeting social and environmental performance standards has been validated by the growth of Chloé under her creative leadership. The students at FIT are aspiring designers with a sustainability mindset and she is an inspiration to them. It is our honor to recognize her sustainability work and contribution to the world of fashion.”
Valerie Steele, director at the Museum at FIT, added, “Born in Uruguay, where she grew up on her parents’ ranch, Gabriela Hearst is today one of fashion’s most visionary creators. Her luxurious, beautiful and sustainable fashions are already iconic.”
The Museum at FIT’s latest exhibition, “¡Moda Hoy! Latin American and Latinx Fashion Design Today,” which opened May 31, examines the work of Latin American and Latine fashion designers from the first two decades of the 21st century. It features designs by Hearst and will be on view through Nov. 12.
