April 22nd, 2020
Dear Hesperios Friends,
I hope everyone is doing well and keeping their spirits up, as we transition into something new. Now is the time to choose how we want our “new” to be.
Sending love from Aquinnah,
Autumn
Lists
- No new playlists from me this week, but my friend Gillian made this: Times are Strange.
- A peak of the senses, an ocean of language at your fingertips. The Writing Life by Annie Dillard.
- No longer waiting for the return of normal. I’m ready to build something different.
- Between 1923 and 1979, Gio Ponti wrote letters found to be somewhere at 96,000 documents.
- J’en ai marre of your theatrics, The Private Life.
- The last of the great eccentrics. The Secret Life of Edward James presented by George Melly.
- Emerson said, “In each pause, I hear the call.” The latest opinion by Thomas L. Friedman.
- Mr. Hitchcock’s definition of Happiness.
- Being a Human Being, by Tom Leonard
Hesperios
I’ve never been a fan of newsletters, unless it’s The Paris Review’s, though I do wish Werner Herzog sent them. When I think about brands having a newsletter, I cringe a little (even that word, “brand,” is off-putting). I like news and I like letters, but not together. No one ever pines for a newsletter, do they? But ever since Covid-19 shut everything down, this has been my humble attempt to scribble little notes in the hope of offering some value to those who are curious about the inner life of Hesperios. I like to think of them simply as letters, and I’m going to keep thinking of them that way.
I always approached the fashion industry with a sense of trepidation, but never more so than now. There are so many inevitable, though absolutely necessary, changes that it’s hard to stay oriented. It seems wrong even to try! Even the word “fashion” sounds inappropriate now—it’s as if we need a new name entirely. What could we call it? Systems that are not sustainable often collapse and this pandemic is forcing every industry to reflect and think about their future, their foundations, and the well-being of all the people that form part of their chain.
It’s no coincidence that our most recent issue of Hesperios Journal had foundations as its theme. I pursued publishing because this is something I love to do: sharing stories, bringing people together, celebrating community. I also love to make things, and I started Hesperios because I wanted to make a sweater you will never want to let go of. A good sweater should last a lifetime. Everything we make is done with timelessness, longevity, and integrity in mind.
In November 2019, I decided to take some steps back and reflect on what we have created thus far. It seemed only natural to introduce different media to our platform and to give the Journal a new conduit to express all that has been collected over time. As we develop a new website that will launch in the summer, it also seems imperative to change how we contribute to the world of fashion.
We hope to use this difficult time of imposed isolation to really dedicate ourselves to the above goals. I think of Hesperios as an artist collective or a creative house, and only by being proud of how we create do I think we can be proud of what we create. We’ve only just begun and our foundation is strong.
We sent out a letter to our clients on February 18, 2020, informing everyone that we would be skipping two seasons, that we were shifting production to New York, and that we will only be releasing one collection a year to supplement our year-round focus on the Hesperios Knit Library. Here are a few paragraphs from that letter:
If you are a client, designer, artist, or curious-minded friend of Hesperios and want to have a conversation around these changing times, feel free to email me.
Arts
Torelli : Concerti Grossi Op. 8
Watch here
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