Gabriela Hearst presents the fall winter 2023 collection in New York. Sumbuck performed.
Collection Notes
A house is not a machine to live in. It is the shell of a man—his extension, his release, his spiritual emanation.
What is classic? What is modern? What is timeless design? What is forever and eternally New?
I have always been drawn to everything that is not a trend. I sometimes coincide with a trend by mistake or the fact that I live in New York City, but when I look up my design heroes, I rest assured that the North Star of timelessness is a creation that feels ancient to the soul and is ever-present within it.
The muse for this season came serendipitously from my dharma. I drew a sketch that seemed quite “phallic,” per Steph’s observation (7/14/2022). “I don’t want to be drawing this,” I told her.
The next day I was in Ireland for a wedding. In my spare time, I went to the National Museum of Ireland, where an exhibit on Eileen Gray is permanently on display. I didn’t know much of her work beside her furniture design, especially the tubular steel ‘Adjustable Table E1027’.
Eileen Gray
Gray was the first designer to use chrome, before her contemporaries
Le Corbusier or Mies van der Rohe. I began an exhilarating journey to learn about a woman who was one of the best creators ever. Painter, sculptor, photographer, artist, designer, and self-taught architect —her dragon chair still holds the record for the highest price for 20th-century furniture at auction. She never got to see this reality; like many women, she undervalued herself and her excellence.
I realized she was the one to channel this season as I found the sign in the similarity of my “phallic” drawing I had done the day before. In a sketch of “Plan for Tour de Neslie’ rug. Immediately, I sent a photo to the team.
It was the ultimate cosmic joke sent from a woman with a clear sense of humor (this is especially true if you know the stories behind Corbusier’s murals in Gray’s E1027 villa). The journey of paying our respects to Eileen Gray began.
Gray lived 98 years; born in 1878 in Enniscorthy, Ireland, and died in Paris, France. Her life spanned the dawn of the industrial revolution, two world wars, and the moon landing—one of humanity's most significant periods. Everything from her Victorian-era attire as a young woman to her sharp tailleur in her Rue Bonaparte apartment expresses unapologetic chic.
Artistic Integrity
There is so much wealth to the story of her life; the only way to encompass most of it is at an essence level. Her passion and curiosity guided her in an uncompromising life with artistic integrity. When planes came into existence, she learned how to pilot them. She flew across the channel in a biplane in 1913 and received one of the first driving licenses issued in Paris. She trained and excelled in Japanese lacquer work. Her screens are considered some of the world's finest examples of art.
She constructed her villa E1027 in the South of France for her then-lover Jean Badovici between 1926 and 1928—arguably the first piece of modernist architecture ever built.
Le Corbusier painted eight large, colorful, sexually-charged murals in the house during the summer of 1938 at the invitation of Badovici. His seemingly concerted campaign to undo the achievement of villa E1027 cost Eileen her intellectual and physical property rights. Jean Rykwert finally restored her right to be recognized as its architect in 1968.
Many of the modern furniture pieces she designed for the villa remain
in production, including her ever-enduring 'adjustable table,' commercially known as the 'E1027 Table'. It was designed in 1925 for her sister, who ate breakfast in bed, to hold her dining tray above the bed, minimizing crumb spillage.
E-1027
She served Love. The code name E-1027 is derived from E for Eileen,
10 for Jean (J is the 10th letter of the alphabet), 2 for B(adovici) and 7 for G(ray). For Gray, love was fluid—she had a long and important love affair with Marisa Damia, one of the most famous Parisian singers of the day. She closed her beautiful gallery Jean Desert (where her pieces and acclaimed carpet designs were sold) when her friend Gaby Bloch took up with Marisa Damia. She kept a photograph of Marisa on her mantle in Rue Bonaparte for the rest of her life.
Almost every major piece of furniture she designed was for somebody she loved.
A polymath, she had a unique aesthetic, elegant yet essential, demanding function and form from her innovations. All of her resonated with us.
We honor Eileen not only in the collection but also in the set design.
Ricardo Bofill
One of my favorite architects Ricardo Bofill, passed away last year. Helped by the force that drives us, my dear friend and filmmaker Clara Cullen (who also shoots our shows) introduced me to her brother-in-law Pablo Bofill. I am so humbled that they agreed to collaborate with us. Because only love for creation could let us have “la ciudad en el espacio” as our set. This impressive work made the show for us.
And the sound of love with no spotlight. Just how EG would have liked it.
– Gabriela Hearst
Collection
