Introducing Heirlome, the Label Weaving ‘Artesanía’ Throughout Its Refined Ready-to-wear
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For Stephanie Suberville, heirlooms are more than just physical objects. They include things like the knowledge of craftspeople in her native Mexico.
“These traditions are their heirlooms as they pass down the information from one generation to the next,” the designer told WWD, but “their art is increasingly expensive, time consuming and not easily shipped, so there are less and less of them around.”
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Wanting to share that work with a larger audience led Suberville to quit working for brands like Rag & Bone and La Ligne and establish her own line in 2022. A combination of “heir” and “lome-” meaning tool in middle-English, she chose the name as a reflection of her mission: each season spotlights a new Mexican artist, their work reinterpreted through print or embellishment and carefully woven throughout her mix of modern tailoring and sweeping drapery.
Suberville scouts for collaborators at local shops in Monterrey and in the Fomento Cultural Citibanamex’s catalog, Great Masters of Mexican Folk Art, which is where she discovered Arturo Estrada, a local backstrap weaver who produced the rebozo shawls in her debut collection. Estrada based them on a vintage design belonging to Suberville’s mother. One in ivory recently made its way onto Dior creative director Maria Grazia Chiuiri while was in Mexico City preparing for the house’s resort show.
For her own resort collection, Suberville reintroduced the shawls in brighter colors, like emerald and poppy, inspired by Luis Barragan’s architecture. These carried through to slip dresses in patchwork silk edged with french lace. Barragan’s clean lines are mimicked on the back of a gown with intersecting pinch-pleats and on a double-breasted topcoat with zipped sleeves, allowing it to be worn as a cape. Hand-cut placement prints are an Heirlome speciality and this season’s jaguar motif comes courtesy of ceramicist Juana Gomez Ramirez.
Suberville runs Heirlome alongside husband Jeffrey Axford who serves as chief executive officer. “In a way, it’s not that different than raising kids together, you learn each other’s strengths and weaknesses,” she said. “But I’m 100 percent on the creative and product side, and he is more involved on the financial, logistical side.”
The two are looking to wholesale for resort and will present the collection with the Deck Collective development agency in both New York and Paris. “We’ve seen interest and I’m excited for retailers to finally get to experience it in person,” she said hoping to hit a sweet spot with prices that fall just below high-luxury.
“We are at a ‘designer’ price point but not at the highest end. We wanted to be able to use the best fabrics, work with the best factories and not compromise quality…but not be completely unattainable for the woman who shops contemporary,” she said.
And while Heirlome’s timeless look is right in-step with the stealth minimalism trending at all levels, Suberville doesn’t want to be defined by it, crediting the artists as her brand’s point of difference. “The customer is not coming to us for your everyday cashmere sweater. They are coming to us to find something special.”
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