Dree Hemingway has always seemed most at home between worlds. Between fashion and film, polish and nonchalance, the city and somewhere altogether wilder. Ask her to choose between the mountains and the metropolis and she won’t. “I need the mountains when I’m overwhelmed and a city when I’m underwhelmed,” she tells RUSSH.
It makes Hemingway a natural protagonist for Weekend Max Mara’s latest Signature Collection, Into the Forest: A Weekend with Robert Rabensteiner. Co-created with stylist and former L’Uomo Vogue fashion editor-at-large Robert Rabensteiner, the collection imagines a wardrobe that moves just as easily between opposites: nature and city, masculine and feminine, Alpine days and elegant evenings.
Folk and workwear meet hiking attire and evening glamour; sturdy wools and practical boots sit alongside silk, velvet slippers and sweeping double-wool capes. It’s a wardrobe built for movement, but also for the particular romance of getting away.
Shot in Switzerland’s Engadin Valley, the campaign brought Hemingway somewhere unexpectedly familiar. The landscape reminded her of Idaho, where she grew up, lending the experience “a sense of being home”. Perhaps that is the appeal of Into the Forest: it treats escape not as disappearing entirely, but as finding the places – and the clothes – in which you feel most yourself.
For Hemingway, that might mean a vast landscape, mountains and a river; a cashmere sweater and blue jeans; or, when evening arrives, the collection’s purple cape.
Below, RUSSH speaks with Hemingway about emotional overpacking, spontaneous detours, her dream dinner party in the woods, and why the best kind of holiday involves hiking boots, velvet slippers and a very cosy fireplace.
What does the perfect escape look like to you?
A house in the middle of nowhere with lots of land, a pool, a deck of cards, a book and beautiful food with my family and favorite people.
Mountains or city – where do you feel most yourself?
I need both. I need the mountains when I’m overwhelmed and a city when I’m underwhelmed.
Are you a meticulous packer or a throw-it-in-the-bag traveller?
I’m pretty meticulous unless I’m hormonal and then it’s emotional overpacking. Note: I am always the night before packer… I admire those who can organise a week in advance.
What’s the one thing you always pack, no matter where you’re going?
A cashmere sweater and a pair of blue jeans.
What surprised you most about shooting in the Engadin Valley for this collection by Weekend Max Mara?
How athletic everyone is. It also very much reminded me of Idaho where I grew up so there was a sense of being home.
The collection Into The Forest by Weekend Max Mara imagines an elegant dinner in the middle of the woods. Who’s at your table?
Jeff Bridges, Lee Miller, Katharine Hepburn, my dad, Robin Williams, Anne Brontë, my great grandfather, my aunt Margaux, David Attenborough. That seems like a rather entertaining dinner table.
Hiking boots by day, velvet slippers by night – is that your kind of holiday?
100 per cent but add a cozy fireplace.
What’s your secret to looking put-together when you’re living out of a suitcase?
Chic basics. I also am a believer that a great coat and sweater can elevate any ensemble.
What’s the most spontaneous trip you’ve ever taken?
That’s a hard one I’m pretty spontaneous to begin with.
What’s a place you’d return to again and again?
Give me a vast landscape, mountains and a river and/or a lake and I’m in heaven.
What’s the best detour you’ve ever taken while travelling?
My life feels like a detour and I love it.
If you could take one piece from Into the Forest collection anywhere in the world, what would you choose – and where would you wear it?
The purple cape.
What was your favourite moment from shooting the Weekend Max Mara campaign?
I got to shoot with my friends Sean and Robert so it didn’t feel like work.
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