‘I am Latin, there is nothing sterile about me,’ says, recounting the parent-teacher meeting she just had at her nine-year-old son Jack’s New York City school. ‘It’s a strict school, and my son is obviously an artist. He’s half-Latin, so there’s nothing sterile about him, either.
And I’m like, “Today’s textbooks are boring,”’ she says, with a mix of conviction and humour, from her office in Chelsea, Manhattan, where she sits surrounded by notably less boring books of all shapes, sizes and subjects. There are volumes about neolithic history, including Marija Gimbutas’ . Hearst is particularly interested in the roles women played during that period.
In today’s male-dominated world, all of us – both men and women – could do with manifesting our inner female energy more, she says. ‘I think that is correlated to how we are treating the Earth.’ She then shows me an excellent cross-stitched artwork of the female reproductive system with the slogan ‘Grow a pair’, before picking up a hardback tome titled , which chronicles 3,000 years of the most powerful women in history.
‘I make everyone open it and see which queen they are,’ she says, looking regal and effortlessly cool in white tailoring and antique Cartier earrings. Which one is Hearst? ‘I think we have a bit of all of them inside of us. But I’ve always said that , the brand, identifies with Athena,’ she says, citing the goddess of wisdom and military victory.
That tracks. Hearst,.