Gabriela Hearst has designed ballet costumes you can buy
Gabriela Hearst made her stage design debut with the San Francisco Ballet’s production of Carmen in April. Now, the costumes — the first dancewear Hearst has ever made (at least professionally) — are available to shop.
With choreography by Cuban-born Arielle Smith, Carmen constituted half of Dos Mujeres, the company’s first-ever double bill of works by Latina choreographers. (Annabelle Lopez Ochoa’s Broken Wings, about the life and art of Frida Kahlo, was the second part of the program.)
“Dos Mujeres is a triumphant version of Carmen for women,” Hearst tells Bazaar. “It was my most rewarding creative project of late — a project in the performing arts, which is a passion of mine, also Latin-led and woman-led, for which I was able to work and prove the high performance of merino wool, the most sustainable fibre we can use in garments, and break with the stereotype that wool can’t be light and keep you cool.”
The collection features 12 knit designs, including cardigan coats, dresses, sweaters, tanks, shorts, skirts, bralettes, and trousers. Hearst specifically designed all the clothing to be lightweight enough for layering. With names like Carmen, Aurora, Escamillo, Alicia, Mirta, and Soraya, the pieces each embody the characters they were designed for. Carmen’s dress was specifically created with her final twirl in mind: She spins so quickly, the hem of her skirt rises into a tulip shape, almost engulfing her.
“The vision of Arielle Smith was to make the costumes feel like you could wear them offstage,” Hearst says. “Within the first fittings, I kept being asked if we were going to make the pieces available, so here they are — garments from a dream come true. I am so grateful to the San Francisco Ballet, [artistic director] Tamara Rojo, [board member] Monica Grossman, Arielle Smith, and the dancers for this experience.”
The Havana-born Smith had a female-first vision for Carmen, which was first adapted as a ballet in 1949, based on Georges Bizet’s 1875 opera of the same name. In Smith’s iteration, set in modern-day Cuba, Carmen is not an object of the male gaze, but instead a strong woman with autonomy. The bold, vibrant red and yellow merino sets Hearst designed helped accent the character’s body and movements, as well as those of the women around her.
Now the costumes, unveiled for the ballet’s world premiere in April, are available as a limited-edition collection available online now and at Gabriela Hearst stores in Beverly Hills, New York, and London. With prices ranging from £350 to £2,250, Hearst has created pieces ballerinas and non-ballerinas alike could wear forever.
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