Though they often frequented overlapping cultural circles in New York, Gabriela Hearst and Adam Pendleton had never properly met. Then came Nina Simone. The designer and visual artist were introduced by Sharon Coplan, an advisor who orchestrates collaborations across art and fashion, to partner on a limited run of 25 Nina bags—Gabriela Hearst’s classic style, named after the late singer and now reimagined with Pendleton’s one-of-a-kind silkscreens. Proceeds from the collection, on sale this month at Sotheby’s, will go toward preserving the singer’s childhood home, purchased in 2017 by Pendleton and a coterie of other artists interested in uplifting the origin story of an American icon. The collaboration coincides with the artist’s “Love, Queen” exhibition, on view through January 2027, at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, DC, where he continues to play off the ever-changing definition of American artistry.
Here, he joins Hearst in puzzling through what it means to be a maker Stateside at this moment, and the towering figures who continue to set the standard.
Adam Pendleton: I have to admit, I was a bit dubious about the whole idea of working with a fashion brand. I thought everything would move too quickly, and the quality would be low, but it’s been the exact opposite. We have not moved quickly, and the quality is impeccable.
Gabriela Hearst: Meeting you has been so inspiring, because you’re extremely funny, insightful, and deep. It’s been a pleasure.
Pendleton: Gabi is someone who makes you feel better about yourself. We have such similarities, but also differences. The ways in which we are similar are in a deeper, truer sense. Increasingly, people are not intentional about the work that they do. They just want to make it, release it, and be known for it. But, they don’t want to make things that have a deeper purpose or vision. You do have that intention.
Hearst: You can see the struggle in quality across the fine arts. Everyone is really struggling with these lowering standards. Then, you have the believers in quality being the focus, and not shortchanging anyone. That’s [represented in] the bond and love we have for Nina Simone.
Pendleton: Nina is a symbol of being purposeful with your art and how you contribute to the world. That’s rare.
Hearst: Especially the courage to feel, right? When you can sing like her, and you’re able to emote like that, it means that you are that extremely sensitive.
Pendleton: It’s also nice to celebrate someone who was wonderfully imperfect, right? We hold our heroes up to these unrealistic standards, that she would have been a perfect mom, a perfect artist, a perfect citizen… and she was wonderfully complicated.
Hearst: To be the artist is to be that vessel, to let things communicate through us. The bag that we worked on together was named after her—Nina, an idol. You feel less lonely when you hear her voice.
Pendleton: It’s kind of beautiful, because what I had the opportunity to do was deconstruct something that you had created. I looked at the core architecture of your Nina bag and every panel. I pulled it apart, and then I painted each panel on every single bag. Then, we put it back together. There’s this poetry behind the process—that you made something, I got to pull it apart, and then we got to put it together again.
Hearst: I launched with ready-to-wear and shoes, and a friend of mine said to me, “You can’t be walking around with your own ready-to-wear and shoes, but someone else’s bag.”
Pendleton: You have to have your own handbag.
Hearst: I thought, That’s a good point. I started working on this bag in a very Adam way, which was looking at this prototype for eight months, and I kept it with me. I worked hard for it, but it was a bag for me, not anyone else.
We launched it in February 2015, and I was in Paris that October at a trade show carrying the bag. The Japanese buyers would see it and say, kawaii, which means cool. Then, I went to London and I had this idea to make 25 of these bags for friends and women that I admire: Brie Larson, who was doing [Room], my friend Mira. That was an idea I had floating in my mind. In London, I was in the elevator of Claridge’s and opened my bag, which was a prototype. There was a gentleman there and he said, “That’s a cool bag. I want one for my wife.” He gave me his card, and it was Jony Ive from Apple!
Pendleton: I love that. Did you know who he was?
Hearst: Yes, when he gave me the card and I read Jony Ive—he’s the God of design.
Pendleton: He would know if it’s a good bag.
Hearst: I was anointed by the God of design. I thought, Now I have to make it. I called everyone to say that Jony Ive liked my bag, so we made the bag. I sent him one, and it took off immediately. It was like a hundred bags, a thousand bags. It was crazy. You also couldn’t just buy it—you had to print out a PDF and submit it. There was a level of chance. If I hadn’t run into him, maybe I wouldn’t have done it.
Pendleton: What I love about this whole Nina Simone project is how we’re preserving and protecting her childhood home and legacy. We’re building this extraordinary community of people. You’re joining me, Julie [Mehretu], Rashid [Johnson], Venus Williams—all the artists who contributed to the benefit auction. That alone just moves me so deeply. It’s incredible that someone’s legacy can serve as a focusing instrument to answer the critical question: What is American culture?
Hearst: It’s a very profound question, which at the same time, can be lifted as a torch, right? In these dark times, we can look at this for light. We cannot let it get dark.
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