How A Silent Meditation Retreat Helped Garance Doré Launch Her Skincare Brand

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If you followed street style blogs since the mid 2000s, you've definitely heard the name Garance Doré.

In 2006, Doré made a name for herself by sharing original illustrations, videos, and essays on her eponymous blog, Garance Doré. Oh, and how could we forget those iconic street style photos she took during fashion week over the years?

After over a decade of running her blog, collaborating with brands like Louis Vuitton and Prada and writing her first book, Love Style Life, Doré walked away from it all in 2015.

After taking a step back from the fashion industry, she moved to Los Angeles and began reevaluating what she wanted to focus in the next chapter her career.

In 2019, Doré went on a silent retreat that gave her the space to figure out what she wanted to do next.

After many iterations, Doré was born. Dore's new skincare brand is guided by a French approach to beauty without harsh or sensitizing ingredients. 

For the latest episode of Who What Wear With Hillary Kerr, Doré shares how she went from being arguably one of the most influential faces in street style photography to launching her skincare line. 

For some excerpts of their interview, scroll below.

Can we start with your newest project, Dore? I'm so curious about how you got the idea to start it, why you wanted to start it and how things are going so far?

Emily Yeston has been working with me for more than 10 years now. We decided to go on a silent retreat together [in 2019]. We go there and obviously I couldn't shut up—it was really difficult for me.

I thought I wasn't getting anything from it that I was just bored, but the hours of meditation every day and the vibe actually kind of work.

I remember leaving and I just went in my car and drove back home to Los Angeles—where I used to live—and I called her and I told her. "Look, I think our adventure with Dore, the media, I think we have to stop. It's over."

She said, "Yes, it's over. I agree." Our values weren't aligned anymore with what we're doing and it was time to take a break.

This silent retreat brought us there.

Having an idea for something and then actually creating it is a wildly different situation. Tell me a little bit about that process. How did you how did you start?

While we were doing the media, we had many people approach us to create product. I never thought, "This is right." My goal was never to just bring another thing, because we can. 

We have a lab that's in France. We asked around a lot and we are as diligent as possible to make sure that the people we surround ourselves with are great, are honest and that we can conduct business in a way that's very human.

How did you think through formulations?

When I was the editor in chief and the creative director of Doré, we had a beauty closet that was exploding constantly. I was working with a lot of different brands and I also wanted to try all the new products.

I remember that my skin started becoming really sensitive and I started becoming very red. I go, "This is weird. I wonder what it is."

Until one day I went to see my dermatologist and she's like, "What do you put on your skin? There are too many ingredients."

I remember that each time my reaction was always, "Okay, my skin is in need of something simple. I'm going to go back to the French pharmacy." Those brands like La Roche Posay or these kind of things that are safe.

Looking into the formulations, that was also the moment when everybody started to understand more what we meant by clean beauty, what are parabens. Being much more conscious of what we are putting on our skin.

This was kind of the idea at the heart of Doré: How do we create a brand that talks to these ancestral needs and also has the modernity, the standards of cleanliness, of sustainability that we can't do without today?

So that was the idea and we knew would be a very big challenge, because on top of that, I've never liked to pay a lot of money for my beauty products. 

Emily and I had always wanted to do is things that are accessible and that are chic—not just because of the money you spend for them.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. Next up, check out our previous episode featuring our August cover star, Rina Sawayama.