Across the Universe

Chloé creative director Gabriela Hearst is drawing fashion inspiration from clean energy and the results are electrifying

- By Keziah Weir

"I think, by now, you know the difference between magnetic fusion and inertial fusion," Gabriela Hearst says to me as she toggles through images of industrial blueprints on her phone. It’s a question one might expect to hear in a course on plasma physics—or at least the physics pop quiz of this word person’s nightmares. But no, we're in Hearst’s sunny New York design studio, settling in to discuss the springsummer collection from Chloé, where she has held the role of creative director since 2020. Outside the glass door of her office, her team darts between mood boards and clothing racks and models draped in slinky black garments. Inside, wearing a navy silk shirt and a tweed baseball cap under which she has tucked her blond hair, Hearst is still and focused. She is making fusion fashion, a concept that has occupied her design mind for the last year.