Chloé Pre-Fall 2022

Courtesy of Chloé

With two new eco badges, B Corp certification and membership of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, earned over the past two months, Chloé continues to fuse luxury with social responsibility.

Creative director Gabriela Hearst has been driving that mission since she arrived a year ago and, during an interview, spent as much time touting the French brand’s low-impact materials and methods as she did the actual designs.

She’s particularly happy with the B Corp status because, going forward, it will serve as a “report card,” helping to check the brand’s progress as it looks to downsize its carbon footprint, use recycled fabrics and spin natural materials, such as wool and reclaimed wood, into the collections.

Since her arrival last December, Hearst has favored linen over virgin cotton because the environmental impact of growing and manufacturing it is lower.

She’s also whittled down the jewelry collection and tried to eliminate “toxic” galvanization methods for various metals, and is opting instead for natural elements such as baroque pearls, amethyst and recycled silk.

In a Zoom interview from New York, Hearst said that lower impact materials, such as hemp and recycled cotton, account for 70 percent of the product offer, up from 40 percent in winter 2021.

In addition, some 99 percent of the knitwear is lower impact, due partly to the use of recycled cashmere, which she treated with botanical dyes and worked into languid ribbed sweater suits, and a striped poncho dress.

Merino wool was among the stars of the collection. Hearst, who grew up on her family’s sheep and cattle ranch in Uruguay and who won the Woolmark Prize in 2017, praises wool’s lightness, versatility, and ability to help regulate body temperature.

She worked it into capes, coats, outerwear – and even into the delicate crochet of the brand’s sneakers. Among the standout wool silhouettes was a khaki belted cape coat with epaulets – and lots of military swagger – and a gabardine coat with full, rounded broderie anglaise sleeves.

Denim suits were made from a mix of recycled cotton and hemp, part of an ongoing collaboration with the Italian denim expert Adriano Goldschmied, who specializes in innovative textiles. There is no metal anywhere in the design, while the buttons were made from recycled natural materials.

Natural dyes were derived from bloodwood trees, herbaceous plant roots, and safflower, and those earth tones wound their way through the whole of this elegant collection, from the long leather jigsaw coats and tobacco skirt suits with perforated flower designs, to a long shearling coat embroidered with flowery shapes in shades of tomato, olive and rust.