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The Mystical World of Gabriela Hearst

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What do archaeology, nuclear fusion and Benedictine abbess Hildegard of Bingen have in common? Gabriela Hearst has looked to them all for inspiration. For Spring-Summer 2026, the Uruguayan designer turned her attention to the mystic, furthering her study of the Major Arcana tarot pack. A three arc narrative that started with her resort collection and will conclude with pre-fall, Hearst’s show at the Institut National de Jeunes Sourds de Paris started out with researching the deck in great detail, discovering artistic interpretations of divination by Salvador Dalí, Francesco Clemente and Leonora Carrington, and rendering the deck through her own lens, sketching the archetypes in an all female line-up.

Hearst’s reading of the modern mystic opens with the Empress, a divine symbol of femininity, the maternal and companionship, in a leather dress hand-stitched with 2,400 flowers. The ensuing collection is presented in an evocative, elemental colour palette of deep reds and blues, warm earthy colors and stark whites, with gold flourishes scattered throughout. Regal silhouettes are in modest but noble fabrics like linen and cashmere. Later, the Death card, a symbol of change and new beginnings, emerges as a cowboy, an archetype in the Hearst deck: resplendent in a Western-inspired long coat with fringing beaded with charms that signal the four suits of tarot: swords, cups, wands, pentacles, and skulls. She found the symbols as trinkets in an antique store in Rhode Island. It’s indicative of Hearst’s wider goals to be as sustainable as possible while growing her business: this season, almost everything is made from her own deadstock. 97%, she proudly shares.

“Especially in a time like this right now, where things feel so wrong, people tend to turn to the surrealist and the mystic,” said Hearst, on a phone call, from her Paris studio.

What would you like us to know about this collection?

It’s based on the Major Arcana tarot pack. Nobody knows where tarot came from, it’s quite a mystery in our civilisation. The first one we can trace is from the Renaissance but there are documentations mentioning tarot being used in the 1200s. There’s always been a relationship between artists and tarot too, because it’s a way to communicate with the subconscious. Dali, Carrington, Francesco Clemente all made their own tarot. I’ve done many collections with different inspirations but this was the hardest to research, despite it being so common in the collective consciousness.

 

In what ways might fashion drive growth?

One of our main reasons for existing is sustainability and another is long-term wear. At the beginning of a new season, you automatically think of buying new fabrics. But what if you start to think differently and work with materials and stock we have in-house. We had been accumulating a lot of fabrics through the production of previous seasons; everything is pure, we use noble fabrics like linen, cashmere, silk. We’ve done almost a full collection, 97% from deadstock, and we can go to around 80% of production with it. 

 

Big brands could also do this every season or for many seasons. They can use what they have, clean up a little bit. It makes sense for them too, right, because it’s a designer’s job to be creative and use what they have. If you use what you already have, your samples are on time, your production is on time - it makes economical sense. I’m trying to indicate that if you want growth, you want efficiency and profitability but, most of all, that you want it to be conscious of the environment. We can consume better in the endless cycle of fashion. 

 

How do you think your brand can spark and sustain desire with so much else

going on in the world?

The integrity of what we do and how we do it well, without lowering our quality, is extremely important. Our chances of quality are high and we will sacrifice structural things to make sure of that. We have to do many jobs at the same time but we would rather buy good materials to achieve that quality. It’s paid off. Everyone’s calling it a challenging year but we’ve been growing every year since inception. 

 

Our product speaks for itself. We have a high return of clients to our stores; it’s like 65%. I love what we do and I know our clients do too. It’s very hard to find true quality today, it was so much easier 10 years ago; you would buy from one maison or another and you would expect a high standard of quality, but the industrialisation of the industry has taken that down which has created a lot of problems around transparency and supply chain.

 

How would you define elegance in a contemporary context?

It’s not what you wear, it’s how you treat other people and how you conduct yourself. An elegant person in their behaviour translates to who they are. It’s beyond the clothing that we wear.

 

This interview has been lightly edited.

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