Mara Hoffman won fashion's top green award — six months later she closed the label

Mara Hoffman founded her label in 1999 and built it on color and print; in 2014 she pivoted it toward ethics and sustainability — traceable materials, transparent supply chains, smaller runs. The industry noticed: in 2023 the CFDA gave her its Environmental Sustainability award, calling her 'a pioneer in the space for successfully scaling an eco-friendly company,' and that October the brand partnered with textile recycler Circ on dresses made with lyocell derived from 50 per cent recycled textile waste.

The decision to close was made in January 2024, after what British Vogue reported as several years of consideration. On May 19 she posted a letter to customers and staff; the announcement ran May 20. The Spring 2024 collection would be the last 'for the time being'; the company would sell it and remaining stock until nothing was left, and the New York flagship closed. 'The demands that are on a small company financially make it almost impossible to be privately held and run after a certain point,' she said. 'It was the right time while I still own my name.'

What made the closure land was the timing: six months between fashion's highest sustainability honour and the closing letter. Hoffman spoke of 'the devastation of how it simply cannot work in this current iteration of the fashion industry,' calling the industry structure 'archaic' and 'never built to prioritize Earth and its inhabitants.' Thomasine Dolan of the Material Innovation Initiative said Hoffman had proved creativity and sustainability were not mutually exclusive — but that cutting through a saturated market was hard 'without very deep pockets.'