Every issue, GRAZIA USA highlights Game Changers, who inspire, educate, and celebrate individuality, beauty, and style. Meet Amanda Hearst, a tastemaker who turned her passion for promoting sustainable fashion and helping animals into two jobs — and she’s making a change in both worlds.
I started working around 2008 at Marie Claire, and while there I became interested in sustainable fashion. I ended up writing a monthly column called “Good Fashion,” which focused on my favorite brands and the sustainable fashion space, including the movements and trends that were happening. It wasn’t a super-hot topic at the time, and it’s definitely been a journey from there.
While working at the magazine, I met my partner, Hassan Pierre, who had his own sustainable fashion brand. We ended up doing some sustainable fashion pop-ups together, which eventually became our brand, Maison de Mode.
We started doing these one-off pop-ups around America — from Washington, D.C. to Miami and San Francisco, and we did about 13 in total. When we first started, we had maybe six brands, and it was challenging to find them because the product had to be aesthetically pleasing and sustainable. Now we have hundreds of brands that we work with, so it’s very cool to see that change in a relatively short period of time.
We have ready-to-wear accessories, shoes and jewelry, and there’s so many things we could bring
on. I personally think beauty would be really interesting to get into. It’s something I don’t know as much about as fashion, but the natural, sustainable beauty movement is very big right now, and I think it would make sense to start going in that direction.
I would hope that in terms of sustainable fashion, it’s not talked about as a trend anymore. It’s simply that we’re talking about the fashion industry because everything will have sustainability embedded in it in some way, shape or form.
I also have a charity called WELL/BEINGS, which I launched four years ago. I call it my second job. I have loved animals my whole life, and when I found out my dog was from a puppy mill, I had to do something about it. My nonprofit focuses on animal welfare and the environment. With WELL/BEINGS, we want to explain to animal lovers that it’s important to protect a species — not just because we want to save the species but also because it protects us and it protects the natural environment. We try to highlight interconnection and offer beach clean-ups too. People really want to be a part of that, especially now after the pandemic, but they don’t always know how to get involved, so we offer these opportunities.
In terms of my nonprofit, I hope we see organic growth and that we can have some sort of impact, which is why I started it — to feel like I am making a difference with the environment and protecting animals.
With both jobs, they’re my passion projects, and so I kind of forget they’re my occupation. I actually care about what I am doing. I definitely don’t have a plan. I really had no idea initially of what I wanted to do, but I was always talking a lot about fashion and animal welfare, and the more you put those ideas out into the universe, the more it comes to you. That’s sort of how my career path has gone. Right now, I’m living in Europe, which was very unexpected. You can’t really plan too far ahead — a lot of unexpected things can happen and you just have to roll with it. The good part is that you learn a lot, including how to adapt and be flexible.
Read GRAZIA USA’s Fall issue featuring cover star Nicola Peltz Beckham:
I love to travel, so any job that takes me to different countries and introduces me to different perspectives in the world is the best-case scenario for me. I really like visiting Norway since my husband is from there. The energy is very calm there, and they are very ahead of the curve when it comes to sustainability, not only in fashion, but in other industries. It’s fun to see where my husband is from and how certain people grow up so differently. It’s been such a cool opportunity to learn about that area of the world, and I am honestly pretty down to live anywhere. You learn a lot through travel in general.
Ultimately, my goal is to have a profitable company, but we have a mission behind our company. In order to push sustainability, we have to share our knowledge and work together, and I hope that I am doing that with both Maison de Mode and WELL/BEINGS. In the end, I hope we help change the industry — and move with the industry.
— As told to Jaclyn Roth
GRAZIA USA’s 2022 Fall issue will be available for purchase on newsstands nationwide in October. Email [email protected] to subscribe.
