Mara Hoffman, the American designer known for her bright patterns and sustainable practices, is closing her eponymous label after 24 years. The news comes just six months after she received the CFDA Award for Positive Social Impact for her decade of work in the space. The decision to close her brand was a difficult one, but Hoffman says it was the right one for her and her team.
Hoffman started her brand in 1999 after graduating from Parsons in New York City. She quickly gained popularity after Patricia Field took an interest in her work and began selling the pieces at her iconic store in the East Village. Over the next decade, Hoffman’s brightly patterned swim and resort wear became a staple for young celebrities of the time. She was further embedded into the cultural zeitgeist through appearances on reality shows like MTV’s “The City” and her relationship with publicist Kelly Cutrone.
In 2014, Hoffman made a massive pivot to prioritize ethics and sustainability. At that time, she halted everything she had been doing and completely restructured her supply chain to focus on due diligence, moving away from polyester and investing in workers and communities around the world to ensure her garments would earn certifications. A few years into the shift, she wasn’t just practicing sustainable design, but championing it, putting her name on some of the first pieces of legislation aimed at regulation, including the New York Fashion Act and the Fashion Sustainability and Social Accountability Act.
Creating a brand that paid workers fair wages and used higher-cost materials didn’t come without financial burdens and business woes. As part of her shift to sustainability and in order to avoid overproduction, she transformed the business from a wholesale to direct-to-consumer operation, but the lack of upfront orders posed problems.
The decision to close her brand was not made lightly. Hoffman says she was finally getting recognition for her work from the fashion industry at large. However, she also felt the devastation of how it simply cannot work in this current iteration of the fashion industry. “I could just keep going and build collection after collection and try to figure out what a department store wants, sit on piles of inventory because this is how the system is.”
Hoffman’s closure raises questions about the viability of sustainable fashion in the current industry landscape. Can sustainable fashion actually exist and thrive in this environment? Hoffman still thinks so, but hopes her decision is a wake-up call. “We need to hold the recognition of the fact that there is so much more to do, and if we’re going to have brands like Mara Hoffman that are using everything they can to make some sort of transformation, there have to be different support systems built for it.”
Hoffman pointed to the fact that for her business to grow, she would have had to make bigger orders and hold larger amounts of inventory, which is something that is fundamentally at odds with her ethos. “I could just keep going and build collection after collection and try to figure out what a department store wants, sit on piles of inventory because this is how the system is.”
There is also a lesson here about learning when enough is enough. When too much clothing is just too much. “Everyone knows how to begin things. People are not versed or trained in our culture to end things because we don’t want to end things. And here we are buried in clothes, we’re buried in stuff because we can’t let things die,” she says. “We can’t end.”
The designer shared the news of the brand’s closing to her customers, collaborators, and team. In it, she makes clear that the path she chose was still the right one, even if it had to come to an end. “It has been an honor to step into a position of responsibility, to become an example of change in this industry, and show the potential for new systems that are more loving, Earth-centered, and kinder,” she wrote.
In an interview, she elaborated that closing the brand doesn’t mean she’s giving up on sustainability in fashion; rather, she’s saying goodbye to a system. When people inevitably ask her what’s next, she’s OK with not having an answer. “It will forever be the most beautiful fucking love story that I could ever imagine writing,” she said.
