



1 / 5 Chevron Chevron Photo: Amanda Demme / Courtesy of Hiraeth

Rooney Mara isn’t your average celebrity turned designer. Her new label, Hiraeth, created with her best friend, Sara Schloat, is quiet, elegant, and comes with a sincere message. Since going vegan seven years ago, Mara had trouble finding non-leather jackets and shoes that aligned with her values. “I realized there aren’t many [faux leather] options available for someone like me who is interested in design and wants high-quality pieces,” she explains. Mara was thorough in her search, too, and disqualified products from major chains with questionable ethics. “In fast fashion, you can find faux leather boots that are really cheap, but while it’s cruelty-free in the animal sense, I didn’t necessarily know where those things were made, or if they were cruel toward humans,” she says. “I didn’t want to compromise on either thing, and I wanted pieces that were made to last. So it really came out of my own need.”

She first started with shoes—specifically combat boots. “Finding a pair of really nice vegan combat boots is sort of impossible—the kind you can dress up, but also run around town in. That was my first order of business.” The project “snowballed” from there into a tightly edited ready-to-wear and footwear operation that eliminates not only leather, but also wool, silk, and cashmere—essentially any material that involves an animal. That makes Hiraeth stand out from the other cruelty-free brands out there. Along with supple-looking “leatherette” trousers and a matching harness, there’s a raspberry corduroy suit, a few Japanese poly “satin” blouses, some velvet items, and an ivory slip dress—timeless pieces with just a touch of romance. She intends for them to live in your closet for a long time, too. “Something I really struggled with was this question of, Do people really need more crap?” she says, only half-joking. “There’s so much waste, so it was important for us to make pieces you can wear forever, or at least, long enough for it to mean something.”