How Discomfort Leads to Real Change with Mara Hoffman
When I left my job at Bazaar in 2020, a part of me didn't know if I even really wanted to work in fashion anymore. I felt disillusioned with the whole system and its lack of integrity, inclusion, care for the environment, and just other human beings in general. I needed time away from it to re-think what I wanted my role in the industry to look like. Of course, it's not all bad, or I wouldn't still be firmly planted in it. But now I have a choice in how I interact with the industry in a way that I didn't when I worked in magazines. I don't have to care about what celebrities are wearing every time they leave their house, or every new celebrity brand launch, or feel like I have to be at every event. Now I choose what I want to engage with and leave the rest.
I've purposefully kept the majority of this newsletter fashion-free because I wanted to explore so many other subjects that have brought meaning to my life. Yes, of course, I'm still gonna give you some shopping guides here and there because I have to give the people what they want. But diving too deeply into the inner workings of the industry has been less important to me.
However, Mara Hoffman is a fashion designer I've always felt drawn to, and was really interested in talking to because of her commitment to evolving as a human—and her business really reflects that. Over the years, I've watched her take her eponymous label known for its bohemian flair with rainbow tie dye, batik prints, and third eye motifs on maxi dresses to a more sophisticated and earthy brand filled with responsibly-sourced cotton, linens, and hemp. Women of all different sizes, races, and ages can find themselves reflected in her brand. She's set an example for the rest of the industry of what a sustainable and inclusive brand could look like. And she started this work long before 2020.
Even though it wasn't easy to change the trajectory her business had been on, she said it became too uncomfortable to operate the brand the same way she always had been. And that's my hope for so many other brands out there—that they get to a place where they, too, are so uncomfortable with the impact their business has on the environment and excluding people of color that they finally make a lasting change.
But until we get to that point, hopefully, we can continue to elevate the people and brands that are putting their best foot forward, no matter how difficult it might be. Below, I chat with Mara about creating a more sustainable business model, navigating the pandemic, and how spirituality plays a role in the office and her life.
What were you like as a kid? And this can be your earliest memory.
I was like who I am now: a sweet, quirky weirdo with big glasses and a bowl cut. My son is 12, and I was talking to him about being 12 and having these heartbreakingly big crushes. He's just got such ease in that space, and I would have these heartbreaking crushes. I was explaining to him that the boys did not like me back then. But I was a cutie, dreamer, weirdo. I love her.
I love that. And when did you first feel yourself being drawn to fashion?
So young. I was just always in this state of dressing up and figuring out clothes and how I could express through that. By eight, I was making these pieces for my mom to wear, and she was, and still is, the most generously spirited human being. She would just participate with me and encourage it. On her birthday, when I was eight, I had made her this skirt with about 20 random buttons. It was just a piece of fabric that you could button anywhere. And she wore it for her birthday party. I feel like it was probably in me when I landed on earth.
When I was thinking about talking to you, I really connected to a memory of myself as a kid where there was a small window where I was kind of interested in creating clothes and I would sketch things, although I was not very talented at sketching. Were you sketching? And when did you get your first sewing machine?
I learned it through school, but I wasn't a natural. I got my sewing machine sophomore year of high school, because I was going to raves and I was making my own rave costumes.
When I was in high school, I started making pleated skirts just intuitively. I would buy the fabric, and I just figured out how to do it, and would wear them to school.
Remember the feeling of accomplishment? And you could figure something out that you could wear on your body?
Yes! So, when did you decide, this is your path?
In high school. I really loved marine biology, I loved the ocean, and I was a scuba diver, and I always believed myself to be a mermaid. So I think that I was like, is there something there for me? I was also a dancer my whole life and grew up as a ballerina. So there was that thing, but I think once it clicked, I must have been probably a freshman or sophomore in high school, and I was like, oh, I think I could be that, or I think I would want to try to be that. Then I just dedicated myself to building a portfolio, starting at the beginning of my junior year.
I know you went to Parsons, but how do you actually start a fashion business? I think so many girls and boys dream of being a designer, but how do you actually get this thing going?
I didn't graduate and think, okay, I'm going to start this business now, which just sort of unfolded as most things do in life. When I graduated from Parsons in '99, I had been making so many clothes, all through my senior year. I was selling clothes to friends who were stylists. So I had already been doing my thing.
After I graduated, I was a bit lost. I knew I wasn't going to go into the grind of going to work at a design house. So I was bringing clothes to a friend's consignment store in Nolita, and I met Patricia Field—she was working on Sex in the City. That started this viable proof of concept, even though I hadn't been looking for a proof of concept, but that what I was making could be something that could support me.
That meeting changed the course of my life and put me on the track of being like, oh, okay, I can make things and sell them to stores. So I lived in a little studio apartment on 28th and Lex, and I sewed one-of-a-kind pieces, and sold them to stores. Patricia Fields placed the first order. Then I saw, okay, you can go to more stores and get orders, and that was the beginning.
What an icon. Did you ever get any of your pieces on Sex in the City?
Yeah. In that first season. And then little points along the way.
I think you've had many different iterations of your business. When I think back to when I first came to know your brand, I think of the tribal-print or batik-print bikinis. I remember my roommate had gone to one of your sample sales and she got a bunch of your bikinis.
Yeah, I think that's when a lot of people got to know the brand that hadn't been on the journey from the beginning with me. So, swim set this identity around it for a while. When we entered swim nothing was really happening. It was such a different world—that was in 2008.
Mara Hoffman Spring 2013 vs Spring 2023
How would you describe the change that the Mara Hoffman brand has gone through, and how did you change it?
I would describe the change being reflective of me being a transforming human being and living through my brand. So I've grown up through my brand, and I've experienced life through it. And I've been a translator of my experiences and how I've wanted to express myself or how I've envisioned supporting women or any people that look to me for that kind of guidance through dress. And that's changed. I mean, I started this thing at like 22 or 23, and I'm 46 now. So imagine how many versions of yourself and how your style has changed. And so, for me, it's extraordinarily uncomfortable to have something out of alignment that I'm trying to put out in the world or tell people that this is what I believe would be helpful for them if I don't believe it. So it had to change.
I would love for you to talk about making your brand more sustainable and more inclusive. In the work that I've done in the last several years of doing D&I consulting for brands with Danielle, you are one of the examples that we give to brands about what an inclusive brand looks like. I think you've done an incredible job. And it didn't necessarily start out that way but there was a shift you recognized that you needed to make for yourself and the brand.
For sure. The big significant shift around the sustainability piece was in 2015. We'd been on this path a little bit over eight years. Before that, there was always an optical kind of aspect of inclusivity on a casting level.So there was a lot of conversation around that. It was a weird conversation because it was to try and normalize how people cast. It was just a very different landscape until the conversation became a larger conversation and more brands were held accountable for their external representation, forget size inclusivity—even on a racial level, it was just very limited. But that wasn't even like a we should. It was just like, who was beautiful? It was very simple, this is beautiful. On a more holistic level, the brand went through such a shift in 2015 where we were dissecting everything, every practice, everything that we were doing from the ground up, and that came from immense amounts of discomfort. That discomfort was a huge catalyst. I had been a little bit aware of what was happening within the industry for the few years leading up to that for probably about two years, and had gotten tuned into the impact level of it.
Is that through watching the documentaries that were coming out?
Right, The True Cost came out. There were things that were slowly happening and I felt paralyzed— in the sense of, how am I going to shift this thing that's already on this trajectory for this kind of growth, and this kind of scaling, and these are the materials I'm using. I'm very reliant on petroleum-based fibers. How do I do that? Then it just got so uncomfortable for me that I kind of stopped in my tracks and I was like, I can't do it anymore. I'd rather close because I couldn't hold the discomfort.And that's great. I'm a huge proponent of letting things become so uncomfortable that it makes you change. Normally if things are comfortable, we just don't change. So I always think about that—I don't look forward to those times in life when things are gonna be super gnarly—but I'm really grateful for them. Nothing gets me to the next level where major discomfort doesn't come first.
For sure. When you think about what happened in the summer of 2020, all these brands felt inspired to change (albeit temporarily) because of, I think not only discomfort, but also a fear of...
Pressure.
Yes, the pressure. Potentially getting canceled. And then when that dissipated, they're like, oh, now we can go back to doing what's comfortable.
Yeah, totally. It's been a weird three years, and being a brand through it. I remember the summer of '20.. what was happening across every board. Unfortunately, it didn't hold. There's a lot of the momentum that wasn't held, and there were a lot of the promises that weren't kept. And that's got to be an extraordinarily disappointing thing, particularly sitting as a consumer or sitting as someone who is feeling hope for that. I sit in the eye of the beast a little bit. But if I was looking at the brands that I loved… like what? Where'd you go? What was that? It would be a really disheartening experience.
That's exactly the word that comes to my mind. It's incredibly disheartening, and I think especially to be in the industry in the way that I sit in it and I'm watching what brands are doing constantly. Danielle and I, definitely, have our eyes on everyone, and we send a lot of emails when we see brands doing things that just are not in line with what they promised. And yeah, the moment has passed. They feel like they just need to do what feels easiest.
But I also think what's interesting is how have you looked outside yourself in a way to evolve this brand. Because I think so many designers create for themselves— and people who look exactly like them. That's who they see their customer as. So, who do you see your customer as?
I think that they're wildly expansive. I don't know. I can't define that person to one being.
Which is amazing. I agree. If I think of a Mara Hoffman customer, I imagine them being anyone.
Yeah, I think my ultimate calling is, through this wider, as wide as my audience can be, to translate a message of love at its core is where it's at with clothes or whatever that might transform into. I've realized that the older I've gotten, I've had more clarity of understanding that the clothes are just the vehicle. But the mission, I think, is in this individual transformation if it can be some kind of alchemical catalyst for some higher level of feeling. When you put something on, that's the medicine. It's a feeling. It's not in the clothing, but the clothing can deliver it. So, I want as many people to experience that. It's tricky because on the other side of it, through the work that we're doing, in the least amount of harm through our fibers and the efforts, we'll call it sustainability, even though it's a very flawed word. There's still an exclusivity to what I'm doing on a price point. I can't be for everybody. It's not about doing a partnership with a Target or something like that because it's also working against trying to find solutions that are really the least harmful. So it's a very tricky spot to sit in when you speak about this kind of work or sustainability. Because it's going to remain limited to who can actually afford it at this point.
For sure. There's always going to be some kind of barrier to entry when you're dealing with fashion.
Yeah, it's hard. It costs a lot of money. It's a whole different set of investment into how you're doing things. It's bandwidth. I get why it's hard and why other brands wouldn't want to do it. But it's also one of those things right now that you kind of can't not do it.
Why don't you participate in New York Fashion Week anymore?
It felt like a waste of resources on multiple levels, energetically for my well being, all those things. Financially, I'm still an independently-run company. I don't have those types of resources. Look, if there's an incredible person out there who believes in what I'm doing in this vision, call me.It takes so much and it takes so much material, physical material as well to build something that just felt out of alignment with the mission statement that it was like, why do I have to do that? What am I doing?
So it was about assessing our energetic spend at every turn. That's part of this mission, if you're overextending or you're overextending your team, then you're out of alignment with the thing you've promised to do.The human side of this is even more important than the fiber side of this. The human being's participation, the human being's wellbeing, literally the wellbeing of the beings. So, for me to even overexert myself on that level, it was like, ah, what's the return?
It wasn't a return.I don't know what the future is, though. Maybe there's a way, because I'm also really interested in being in physical proximity with people right now. I want to be in a physical exchange. So, who knows, maybe there's a different way to show it or to be in togetherness.
I know. I think in general, the industry is kind of in a tough spot when it comes to fashion month. Throughout the pandemic, there were so many conversations around the designers that are exhausted. They can't keep churning out this many collections. People are traveling all over the world for fashion month, the impact on the environment, and this and that.
It's too much. I can't speak to all that. I don't know, people made a lot of promises when they were in that particular situation. I'm grateful that we had started this work way long before we were put into that kind of pressure cooker, because the stuff that we did during that was more internal and more courageous on a transformational level of trying and experimenting with the brand.Again, not having big money people to have to answer to has been a really beautiful part of our ability to be nimble, and make intuitive and emotional-based pivots. There's freedom in that. There's also some real trouble with that. You're always in this compressed money sitch. But I have so much gratitude that I've been able to make decisions from a heart space and a human space, and the brand reflects that.
My favorite pieces from Mara's Spring 2023 collection: Kimiko dress // Navya top & Sunja skirt // Yayi bikini top & Coco bikini bottom // Didi dress
What was it like being a business owner and a designer during the pandemic?
It was excruciating because I had to shrink my company by 50%, and that means letting my people go and not being able to hold them all the way through this thing, that I could only hold half my people through this really terrifying, unknown thing. And it felt devastating. That was the hardest thing I've ever had to do.This level of stress became this fuel for us. Work became so intense. I was working all the time, and my whole team, we were working like animals. I think there was a part of us that almost was fed by this sense of, we've got work.Thank God we came out of that differently. And we came out of that with a different sense of, because at the same time, I was in a very privileged position to sit in such close proximity to nature, which was huge and deeply transformative for me. I had this space of refuge, and it really set the next path for me to approach life differently—and I can't say that that would've happened without that physical transplant that I did.
And obviously you are a very spiritual person. Tell me, what has your spiritual journey been like?
I think when I was little, I started to pray—it wasn't a religious situation. My dad's Jewish, my mom's Catholic. I kind of grew up with a little bit of everything. I knew that there was something I could talk to—there was this line of communication that was available to me through prayer.Then my Aunt Celia passed away, and I just really started to talk to her. And she was so available to me, probably about eight, and was so helpful and would do little things for me and take care of me. I didn't have a real relationship with her when she was alive, but something happened when she passed that I just connected so deeply to her. I would talk to her at night and I'd ask her for little things. This is so sweet, though. There was a bulb that wasn't growing, which, I'm forgetting the name. It's a common flower. One night, I was talking to her about the bulb. I was talking about the flower. And I was like, will you [grow] this flower? It was very typical. And then the next day, it just shot up. She was just very playful with me in that way—and I never felt alone.
I think it was a very early initiator beyond the physical plane, that there is love, support, and great benevolence for us—if we want it.In my early 20s, I found yoga, which was really helpful for me just to find a practice to still my body, to still my mind. Also just to dig into other cultural relationships to God. And that was really helpful for me because I was so inspired by the arts and that spoke to me and the mythology of gods and goddesses and where that came in. So I could connect to that, and the stories of how humans reflected back to this, that was a big part.And then, let's see, meditation. And then plant medicine has been an enormous influence in my life. I'm a huge advocate for plant medicine and what that can do to our hearts and our spirits and our heads when it's held appropriately in great reverence and respect and care for the person who's participating in it.I think that that has transformed my life— being able to use those modalities. And they've been enormous expanders for me, and they continue to be. So I feel like that's been maybe the last 15 years of my life has been in that space. And I fell in love with astrology in high school.
What do you have in your 12th and 8th house? Because the story with your aunt, you definitely have stuff going on there…
Oh, I have to look at it. I should know it. Most recently, I am really into human design. And I don't even know if I would call that. I guess for a lot of people it would be like, that's a spiritual practice. But, for me, it's more of like an energetic [practice], if you want to separate those ideas. It's been a framework for self-knowledge. Understanding how my energy works in relationship to myself, in relationship to you, in relationship to the world, and what the world needs from me. And understanding clearly what my job is and where I can be of service. And so I think that that's been this beautiful clarifier and it's helped my relationships significantly. Okay, when I'm with you or you're a generator, cool. I know how to be with you a little bit differently. You know how to approach that. I understand your energy. So I'm going to let you speak first. I'm going to wait until you have something that you need from me, but I'm not going to initiate with you. There's just ways of being that have really lubed the whole experience of life.
Have you had your whole office do the human design?
I know all their astrological signs. Honestly, I ask in interviews, it is not illegal to ask somebody their astrological sign. I can't ask their birthday, but I can ask specifically, what is your astrological sign? And usually, it's a really interesting way to see how someone responds. Oh, I have this. Or they get really into it and they're like,
oh, I'm this, but I feel like this and I totally feel like this. It helps me understand. It gives them a little crack in it to get into who they are.
You should definitely have the rest of your team do their human design. I learned about human design the last year that I was at Bazaar. And it mentioned how I do better, like my day should be spent out and about meeting people. At that point, I was already itching to leave my job. So I was like, this is just a sign, I'm not meant to be chained to my desk all day.
And it just gave you sort of a validation of what you were already feeling. Isn't it nice to have that system behind you that kind of helps with the guidance of how we make decisions in our life? And not that we can't do that, and I deeply believe in free will. I'm not saying that this is something that you
have to believe in. It's just something that you can experiment with. And if it's helpful for you, wonderful. And if it's not, move away. It's been very helpful for me.
Do you feel like spiritually has really transformed the way that you operate in your business?
Yes. And in my life, in my body, and in my relationship to all things. Yes. Again, I'll lean one to the human design side of that.We can understand my team through their human design. I know a lot of the human design, astrology in the office. But it's also understanding how they're going to fit or how they're going to respond, and who's better to work closely with me and who isn't. As far as the energy and how I approach work, the human design part's been so helpful because I'm learning I need a lot of rest. I need to be alone. I need to turn off. I'm surrounded by generators. So I have to learn how to be in relation to that, and how to support them and help them do this bigger kind of energetic push. But it's not my job to do the energetic push. I don't have it in me. I don't have those motors. Do what you do. But I'm here to, for you to say, Hey Mar, you got something that you can help me with? I'm like uh-huh. You can go like turn right, turn left. Like that. Or give a vision on something.So I've learned to honor that. I've learned to honor that I need rest. I need a lot of rest. And I didn't work like that my whole life. I worked as a generator. I was like a conditioned manifesting generator, probably my whole building this business. And now I'm like, I'm going to try being a projector and see what happens. And I really like it.
And what's your husband's human design?
He's an emotional manifesting generator. And then my son is an emotional pure manifest, which is its own trip. It's been extraordinarily helpful. I appreciate that Human Design speaks quite a bit to it being an excellent way to learn how to parent. This is really what it's for, to help bring people up. So I've used it on a parenting level and it has really helped me tremendously be able to relate to my son and help him through his experience. And not have to try and change these parts about him that I was trying to change before.This is how you're built. How do I make this feel a little more useful for you and the people that you're interacting with? Give you a little bit of the softening skills so that you can go into the world. And people aren't like, oh, come on dude, chill out. I'm like, here's some tricks to this. It's been so helpful.
If only other parents could be like you
There's people who are going to roll their eyes at this thing. But again, there's no dogma. No, you got to do this. Is it for me? Yeah. This is awesome. Some people eat meat. Some people don't eat meat. Some people, when you learn what's right for your body, this is the same thing.
Exactly. And again, bringing it back to office work, I feel like Human Design is so helpful, coming from corporate America, everyone is expected to work exactly the same. You punch in at this time and you punch out at that time. And between those hours you're just work, work, work, work, working.
It's very masculine. I've been really thinking about that too. This re-transformation within how we're holding a few things. How we're holding this idea of what is success. It was a huge one. Then growth and how we actually show up to work—it was built on a very, very old paradigm. It was built on something that was not honoring the planet. It wasn't honoring our bodies. It wasn't honoring our cycles and our seasons. And how, if we were really attuned to living in oneness, we would have a very different work experience. Right?And we can't fully transform that, but we're doing our best to allow for it to be a more feminine experience of creativity and how we're participating in capitalism. At least allow us to take a feminine approach to it.
How do you define success for yourself right now?
I think ease, happiness, and feeling that I have integrity with the work that I'm doing. Knowing that my people are really well cared for in any contact. That's the thing. Are my people good? Am I good? And how does my body feel? And do I feel safe? And am I able to continue to care for others?
And beauty. Am I contributing beauty and am I contributing solutions? Because once I stop doing that, if I can't... So much of the design philosophy now is like, well, what is it for? What is it helping? Why? That's the commitment to this sustainability thing, is there a solution? Is this an answer to something? Or is this just in egoic contribution or for validity? Beauty is a solution. Beauty is not for validity. Beauty is part of the answer out of this thing, I believe.
And what brings you joy right now?
Learning about these modalities, honestly. I'm curious about that. Being with my family, being with my beautiful son right now, it's so precious. This little window breaks my heart because it's quick. And I'm just loving on that. Being in nature, talking to my trees. I'm a tree-talker. It's a part of my spirituality. And my practice too is a really real deep and growing relationship I have with the trees where I live. They're incredible guides to me and they help me out—and building that, that brings me a lot of joy. Rest brings me joy.