With A-list champions like Meghan Markle , Angelina Jolie and Amal Clooney, it’s no surprise that Gabriela Hearst’s Nina bag – named after Nina Simone – is the creation that she’s proudest of to date. “I started with shoes and ready-to-wear, and my friend told me, ‘You can’t be walking around with someone else’s bag,’” the designer tells The Closet Digest , British Vogue ’s podcast sponsored by Vinted, of the early days of her eponymous brand. “So I worked on this bag for myself; it was for no one else.
” A chance encounter with Jony Ive , Apple’s former chief design officer, in the lift at Claridge’s encouraged her to put the bag – dubbed “the dumpling or cookie fortune bag” – into production. “He says, ‘If you do them, I want one for my wife,’” she recalls. “And he gives me [his] card and it’s Jony Ive from Apple.
So I sent him the bag and he sent me the iPad Pro.” Despite quickly earning cult status, Hearst – who was only going to make 25 to begin with – has only ever made the bags in limited quantities, in keeping with the designer’s eco-minded ethos. At one point, the waiting list for the Nina was 1,500-strong, with customers trying to bribe members of staff to get bumped up the list.
“When every wholesaler in the world wanted the bag, I said no – the business could have been humongous,” she explains. “But I didn’t want to sell out because I needed to use that amount of natural resources to make the sam.