For Stephanie Suberville, heirlooms are greater than just physical objects. They include things just like the knowledge of craftspeople in her native Mexico.

“These traditions are their heirlooms as they pass down the knowledge from one generation to the following,” the designer told WWD, but “their art is increasingly expensive, time consuming and never easily shipped, so there are less and fewer of them around.”  

Wanting to share that work with a bigger audience led Suberville to quit working for brands like Rag & Bone and La Ligne and establish her own line in 2022. A mixture of “heir” and “lome-” meaning tool in middle-English, she selected the name as a mirrored image of her mission: each season spotlights a latest Mexican artist, their work reinterpreted through print or embellishment and punctiliously woven throughout her mix of contemporary tailoring and sweeping drapery. 

Suberville scouts for collaborators at local shops in Monterrey and within the Fomento Cultural Citibanamex’s catalog, Great Masters of Mexican Folk Art, which is where she discovered Arturo Estrada, an area 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 home’s resort show.  

For her own resort collection, Suberville reintroduced the shawls in brighter colours, like emerald and poppy, inspired by Luis Barragan’s architecture. These carried through to slide 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 one another’s strengths and weaknesses,” she said. “But I’m one hundred pc on the creative and product side, and he’s more involved on the financial, logistical side.”

The 2 wish to wholesale for resort and can present the gathering with the Deck Collective development agency in each Latest 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 under high-luxury.

“We’re at a ‘designer’ price point but not at the very best end. We desired to have the ability to make use of the very best fabrics, work with the very best factories and never compromise quality…but not be completely unattainable for the lady who shops contemporary,” she said.

And while Heirlome’s timeless look is true in-step with the stealth minimalism trending in any respect levels, Suberville doesn’t wish to be defined by it, crediting the artists as her brand’s point of difference. “The shopper is just not coming to us in your on a regular basis cashmere sweater. They’re coming to us to seek out something special.”