The Chloé Girl has entered into a new era under its new creative director, Gabriella Hearst and this era is no longer just simply about clothes. Hearst is a New York designer known for her environmental practices and use of sustainable practices and she is now bringing that to Chloé. This New York Times article, The Chloé Girl Has Grown Up – And Grown a Social Conscious, touches more on Hearst’s background, the history of the Chloé brand, and how the brand is moving toward a more socially conscious persona as Hearst takes over as the new creative director.
Personally, I think Hearst’s creative direction toward a more socially conscious company and designs is a great public relations move for the Chloé brand. Recently, it has been proven that a brand having a social conscious is important to consumers, especially Gen Z and Millenial consumers. In order to keep up with these target audiences and to maintain a relevant brand, Chloé needs to keep up with what is important to these audiences: a social conscious and sustainable business practices. It can be seen that these two specific audiences care a lot about this as through what they choose to post about brands on social media and who they prefer to buy from. Environmentally sustainable fashion brands regularly get free publicity and support from Millenials and Gen Z consumers on social media while fashion brands that do not seem to have a social conscious or are not environmentally sustainable, often get backlash and negative publicity on social media platforms such as Tik Tok and Instagram from Millenial and Gen Z consumers. It is clear, having a social conscious is in this season and it looks like this trend is going to stay.
Therefore, having someone who is known for caring about environmentally sustainable business approaches and using sustainable fabrics in their designs was a smart move for Chloé. It shows that they care about what is important to their consumers and that they also care about something bigger than their product sales; they care about what the sales of their product does to the world around them which is something that is really important in today’s society. I believe that going forward we will continue to see more negative publicity surrounding brands without a social conscious so by Heart and the Chloé brand taking steps to show they have a social conscious such as donating Sheltersuits for every bag they sell, they are avoiding this negative publicity now and possibly protecting themselves from in in the future as well.