Riding High: Gabriela Hearst on Ranch Life, Circular Craft and Empowering Women through Design

Words by Grace Cain
24th September 2026

She’s known for creating the sort of clothes that women (and men) want: think great fabrics, beautiful tailoring and pieces that are made to last. But how did Gabriela Hearst go from off the grid to on your wish list?

“My earliest memory is my mom being thrown from a horse,” says Gabriela Hearst. “I was maybe three years old. She was competing in a rodeo and the horse threw her. She hit the ground and then walked towards me, no crying or anything, but I could see the blood coming out of her mouth. Her teeth had fallen out.” Wow. “I know!” Hearst laughs. “My mother asked me how I could remember that and I was like, because it’s traumatic!”

Though she now helms her successful eponymous fashion brand from New York City, Hearst grew up on her family’s ranch in Uruguay’s Paysandú region, where the cattle and sheep far outnumbered the gauchos that herded them beneath a sky that went on forever. “You can see more stars in the southern hemisphere,” says Hearst. “Growing up on a ranch, you see the incredible beauty provided by nature, but you also see its power. I’ve seen lightning strike trees so I know how strong it can be. That’s why I respect it.”

It feels (to me, anyway) like the life of a gaucho in Paysandú and that of a fashion designer in NYC could not be more different. Hearst, however, doesn’t see it that way, drawing parallels between these two strands of her existence with ease. “There’s a grit and beauty in both [locations] that makes me feel at home.” There are also similarities to be found, she argues, in the two jobs. “There’s the ability to multitask, the constant deadlines, the need to use your imagination to fix problems. And you have to understand that it’s all-encompassing. It will demand ev-er-y-thing from you: your mental ability, your physical ability, your endurance and your spirit.”

Did the young girl in Paysandú always harbour the dream of being a fashion designer? “I didn’t even know this was a job, but I was always very excited about clothes. I loved drawing, so I would draw princesses and quinceañera dresses [worn for a young woman’s coming of age] for my friends. I designed a full shoe collection,” she recalls. “My mom says that I was successful in spite of my family, not because of my family. They were all gauchos and I was just there drawing all day long, and they’d look at me like, ‘Who is this kid?’”

Hearst pauses briefly, then continues: “I truly believe that some things choose you. I’ve been doing this now for 23 years, and I’m just starting to finally feel like I’m getting a grasp of it. If you do something long enough, you’ll become good at it.” I feel like Hearst is being pretty hard on herself. By any standards, she’s been good at this for quite a while. Her clothes are beloved by some of the world’s most recognisable women (think Oprah Winfrey, Amal Clooney and Zoë Kravitz). In 2020, she was named creative director at Chloé, a position she held for three years – and under her leadership, it became the first European luxury fashion house to receive B Corp Certification. And while ‘sustainability’ can feel like a bit of an untethered buzzword in fashion, it’s been at the heart of Hearst’s approach since she founded her brand; she refers to it now as her ‘North Star’, and it’s clear that a respect for the earth is engrained in her.

“I learned everything I know about sustainability from my upbringing, because there is nothing more circular than a ranch,” she says. “I also learned about the importance of craft and quality, because things have to be well-made so they can endure for generations. When it comes to making garments, we need to look at history, not the future. We don’t have to invent anything because we already have the most sustainable fibre: wool. Everything is here for us to use. We just have to use it wisely.”

For Hearst, the environmental cause is intertwined with the other primary mission that underpins her brand: the empowerment of women. “To me, it’s the same cause: Mother Nature.” Her AW25 collection was deeply influenced by the work of archaeologist and anthropologist Marija Gimbutas, who theorised that women in Neolithic Europe were once venerated as deities, while for AW26, she looked to Eglantyne Jebb, the trailblazing founder of Save the Children (a charity that Hearst herself has partnered with for many years). Meanwhile, trench coats (with removable fur collars repurposed from vintage pieces) nod to Edwardian-era Britain, where the style came to the fore. “I can’t just do a pretty collection – it’s not enough,” she explains. “It has to be rooted in something deep for me. Sometimes what sparks my curiosity is subconscious, but I always have to do something with meaning.”

If you set aside the chaos of the fashion calendar, the whirl of New York and the fact that we are speaking to each other through a screen, it genuinely feels like Hearst tries to live an analogue life whenever possible. She carries her own tarot cards everywhere and meditates every single day. “I still paint all my collections by hand, which gives me peace,” she says. “Sometimes I feel I need to paint more just for fun. I love watching good movies, although it’s getting harder now to find anything that can preserve your focus. And I love collective events of joy. I’m really annoyed that I missed the victory of the Knicks in New York City because I was travelling!”

Then, of course, there are some things that simply never change. Hearst’s mother is still a huge influence on her life and work. “She didn’t have a lot of clothes, but what she had, for when she cleaned up, was super pristine, all made by the family seamstress,” she recalls. “Great fabrics, beautifully tailored, made to last. Timeless.” Sounds familiar.