The Chloé Fall/Winter 2023-2024 show

For her Fall/Winter 2023-2024 collection, inspired by the Baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi, Chloé’s creative director Gabriela Hearst pays tribute to powerful women. A collection offering commanding, heroic silhouettes clad in leather.

By June Van Thillo.

Published on 3 March 2023. Updated on 28 July 2025.

A reaction to the Baroque era and the place of women

Inspired by the work and the life of the 17th century baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi, Gabriela Hearst designed a Fall/Winter 2023 collection for Chloé filled with strong historical references. Women’s bodies and choices were strongly regulated during the 17th century and Artemisia Gentileschi could be seen as one of the first feminist painters. She used her art and voice to advocate for women, painting them as main characters and often in a higher position to men. The collection shows Renaissance-inspired silhouettes, innovative fabrications and unexpected materials that aim to reflect feminine power. A puffer cape coat with ruching along the seams made from recycled nylon, an off-the-shoulder dress cut above the knee with bishop sleeves from Nappa leather and lower-impact wool gauze, Chloé‘s signature fabric used in a wide range of garments including capes and long dresses.

The Chloé Fall/Winter 2023-2024 collection pays tribute to The story of Esther before Ahasuerus (c. 1629), a painting that depicts the heroic figure of Esther as a vision of truth and power. The latter risked her life to oppose the powerful King Ahasuerus’s order to execute all Jews in the Persian Empire and convinced him to spare her people. This allegory runs through the collection. The Book of Esther is transposed as a graphic onto dresses and bags, tapestry and is also reinterpreted in black and brown contrast embroideries on a leather skirt and matching jacket. As a coincidence, the Chloé show occurred a couple of days before Purim, the Jewish holiday that commemorates the events of the Book of Esther.

Finding climate solutions through fashion

Gabriela Hearst decided to structure her collections as chapters that are each dedicated to a pioneering climate solution three seasons ago. A new approach that turns the fashion shows into a vehicle for disseminating these ideas to a wider audience. The first chapter was the Fall/Winter 2022-2023 collection that looked at the planet’s proven intrinsic ability to rehabilitate itself when it is left to do so. The Spring/Summer 2023 collection explored the potential for abundant, scalable, clean energy to wean people off fossil fuels. For the third chapter of Gabriela Hearst’s exploration of climate success and her need to champion women as leaders, this Fall-Winter 2023-2024 collection explores the imperative need for women’s stories and their contributions to society.

Often overlooked or suppressed, Gabriala Hearst tries to bring women’s stories out of the shadows and give them a leading role in the race to find climate solutions. An almost Renaissance-like approach; where visionary artists, creatives and scientists come together to create a future where people and the planet thrive.