Heartfelt

Gabriela Hearst is recounting an episode from her childhood that probably sums her up in a single paragraph. “When you grow up on a ranch, you don’t mess around,” warns the Uruguayan designer. “I remember being eight years old, and this huge tarantula shows up on the veranda. But, like, huge.” Her hands indicate the size of a dinner plate. “And I didn’t call my mum or dad for help. You want to know what I did? I grabbed the biggest fork I could find and lobbed it on the tarantula! My father used to tell me I have the courage of a puma, but this is the sort of thing you do when you grow up on a farm. Or if your horse suddenly takes off, if you don’t make the right move you’re dead and you know it. That’s in-built in my system. I have a survival DNA.”

lt’s one of the reasons she is so incredibly unfazed by anything less than certain death. Like her no-fuss approach to helming the Parisian brand Chloé, when