By
AFP
Published
June 5, 2026
Growing up in the countryside beneath the starry skies of her native Uruguay: this is how designer Gabriela Hearst nurtured her passion for sustainable luxury, a commitment that has earned her global renown, as she favors natural fibers and craftsmanship—values she believes are more important than ever in the age of AI.
Gabriela Hearst, who will soon turn 50, was the first Latin American woman to head the French fashion house Chloe (2020-2023). For the past decade, her eponymous brand has been favored by celebrities around the world, including Kate Middleton, Julia Roberts and former US First Lady Jill Biden.
Although she settled and built most of her career in New York, she told AFP she learned everything she knows “about quality and sustainability” in Uruguay, a livestock-rearing nation of just 3.4 million people where she discovered “true beauty”.
“When I was little, I wanted to travel, to see the world,” she recalls in an interview with AFP on Tuesday in Montevideo, where she had come to present the Uruguayan delegation’s uniforms for the FIFA. world cup.
After traveling the world, “I came to appreciate what it meant to grow up beneath a sky full of stars, nature, eating food from the land, the quality, the natural luxury that surrounded me,” she says.
Less, but better
“My mother had a very small wardrobe in the countryside”, with clothes “made by Tota, the family seamstress”. But each new piece was commissioned for “special moments in life: the trousseau when you got married, when you had a child”, she recalls, “clothes were passed down”.
Her advocacy of quality over quantity, and of timeless pieces, runs counter to today’s era of fast fashion and fleeting trends.
While the designer recognizes that the vast majority of people cannot afford a wardrobe made up of pieces crafted from fine materials, she says everyone can contribute by slowing their consumption.
“There are so many clothes in the world, from everywhere, that you can buy vintage, second-hand,” she says, believing that “there’s always a way to own fewer, but higher-quality pieces.”
Handmade in the spotlight –
“The digital revolution and climate change are two forces shaping humanity,” she adds.
In a world where everything seems to be speeding up, especially since the advent of artificial intelligence, more than ever “there will be a genuine need for handcrafted creation,” she maintains.
“The human part, the part of our brain that is unique to us, the brilliant part of humanity will matter more and more,” believes the Uruguayan-American designer.
In her native country, a network of cooperatives bringing together hundreds of women knitters, Manos del Uruguay (“The Hands of Uruguay”), produces handcrafted pieces for her brand, using hand looms or simple knitting needles.
What begins in the Uruguayan countryside ends up on catwalks and the covers of magazines such as Vogueor on television—like a multicolored throw that caused a sensation after appearing on sarah jessica parker‘s lap in the sequel to “Sex and the City”.
Mabel Bargas, one of the organisation’s knitters, now 60, tells AFP she finds it “incredible that our craft has gone this far”.
Gabriela Hearst also stresses the social impact of her work. Those who have the privilege of not having to fight to survive “have a responsibility to help others,” she asserts.
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