Hiraeth (Q4282)
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Hiraeth is a fashion house from FMD.
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Hiraeth |
Hiraeth is a fashion house from FMD. |
Statements
It’s tempting to see Spring 2020 as a turning point in fashion’s sustainability conversation, but that’s the key word:conversation. Designers large and small are talking about their impact this season, and many have started to make positive changes in their materials and production methods. But it will take time for things to change in a fundamental way. We’re optimistic, though, particularly in light of one obvious truth: that this is a movement led by women.Well, of course it is. Maybe it has to do with women’s instincts for protection and our greater emotional sensitivity, but there’s also a fierceness in how today’s women are rising up to tackle the status quo. Hiraeth, a new vegan line out of Los Angeles, is helmed by a trio of them: the actress Rooney Mara, Sara Schloat, and Chrys Wong. It launched quietly in early 2018, with a quite simple origin story: Mara, a longtime vegan, couldn’t find great, non-leather shoes to wear, so she decided to make her own. Hiraeth’s leatherette combat boots and loafers ground its frothy, more romantic clothes, all of which are made without fur, wool, alpaca, silk, or any animal-based material.For a young brand, Hiraeth established its aesthetic rather quickly, perhaps because it’s all designed in Mara’s image. Her preferred aesthetic is femininity with a bite and it’s epitomized by the label's signature look: a pretty dress, a removable harness or peplum at the waist, and combat boots. For Spring 2020, Mara and her team expanded on the harness idea with a pale pink braided version (it looked like silk, but was a luxe alternative). There were more of their puffed-sleeve dresses here, with new experiments in transparency (an ivory lace dress felt less prim with its wrap-effect bodice) and gentle smocking along necklines and cuffs.“In an attempt to reduce our carbon footprint through importing raw materials every season, we started looking for people who create textures on plain fabrics right here in L.A.,” Mara explained. “Our search led us to one of the few existing pleating and smocking facilities still left in town. Most of them shut down in the last two decades because of outsourcing to China.” A few of the smocked pieces came in a bouncy, almost sporty technical fabric, a departure from the label’s more antique-y textures. “The feeling is a lot lighter, which feels appropriate for Spring,” Schloat added.
Celebrities like Sadie Sink and Sarah Paulson (and Mara, of course) have worn Hiraeth’s evening wear, but they'll be drawn to its more casual propositions, too. There was an oversized jacket in Hiraeth’s signature jacquard, and the ultra-light leatherette pants were so soft, you’d swear they were “real.” By next fall, there will likely be more non-leather options to choose from, especially in footwear—but don’t expect Hiraeth to join the fashion calendar anytime soon. “We are still figuring out who we are as a brand and what we can excel at, and we want to grow slowly, in a more thoughtful way,” Mara says. “We definitely want to be able to offer more shoes and accessories in the future—I do feel that is where the biggest need for animal-free products is.”
12 September 2019
Did you know Rooney Mara has a fashion line? Probably not—and she might prefer it that way. This time last year, she was quietly launching Hiraeth with her best friend Sara Schloat and design director Chrys Wong. It arrived with little fanfare, no ad campaigns, and hardly any Instagram posts. Mara isn’t whom you’d describe as a “fashion plate,” either; she isn’t photographed in fresh-off-the-runway looks, rarely attends Fashion Week, and unless she’s promoting a new film, she tends to stay under the radar in general. That doesn’t mean she doesn’t love fashion, of course. She’s become known for her singularly pretty, yet vaguely punk, red-carpet looks, which often involve lace and deconstructed ruffles in black, ivory, or beige. “My favorite evening outfits have always been minimalist but also romantic,” she said.That’s a good way to describe the Hiraeth aesthetic too. But she isn’t just out to design more red-carpet dresses (though there are some gorgeous contenders in her Fall 2019 collection). As a longtime vegan, Mara started Hiraeth to answer her own need for beautiful, high-quality clothes made without animal products—which means no leather or fur, but also no wool, cashmere, alpaca, or even silk. “In our world today, there’s such an extreme disconnection from everything we do—from the earth we live on, from each other, from the food we eat, from the clothes we wear,” shetold melast year. “With clothing, [no one knows] who made their clothes or where were they made or what they’re made out of. People are not at all aware of those things.”Her first collection consisted mostly of day clothes: cotton shirting, “satin” blouses made from a special Japanese poly, and vegan-leather combat boots. For Fall, she experimented with new eveningwear and generally went for more of the “Victorian feel” that’s come to define her own style. Necklines were high; shoulders were gently puffed; skirts were full. “Early on, we were looking at some very old paintings that [became] an inspiration,” she said. “There were three fabrics we found that we kept going back to—an embroidered Swiss cotton, an embroidered velvet, and a corsetry brocade. They all had a sort of old-world feel to them, so that inadvertently became a huge part of the collection.”She found an impossibly light and delicate organic cotton lace, which appeared on a draped, strapless dress and a whisper-sheer gown trimmed with it, a little like lingerie.
The Hiraeth way would be to style them with lace-up boots or a snug jacket, but those dresses had serious awards-season potential too. Sarah Paulson and Sadie Sink are just two celebrities who have already worn Hiraeth on the red carpet: Paulson recently wore an ivory faux-fur Hiraeth coat to the premiere of her filmGlass—with a flame-embellished Prada gown, no less—and Sink wore a custom Hiraeth dress to the Emmys last fall.On the more casual side were the buttoned-up shirtdresses, bib-detailed poplin blouses, and circle skirts—but any notion of primness was quickly subverted by Hiraeth’s signature harnesses and corset belts. A strappy velvet harness was layered over a short-sleeved blouse, for instance, while a Peter Pan–collared dress was shown with an abbreviated peplum “overall.” Mara wears some variation on the accessory almost every day: “I like to pair [them] with more casual outfits, like just jeans and a T-shirt.”
21 February 2019