Heron Preston: ‘Almost losing your brand, you start to hate everything’

It’s inside a ground-level studio in Brooklyn where Heron Preston makes all the magic happen. In fact, it’s his first real studio since founding his brand in 2017. On bright days, he bikes or walks, as it’s only a short drift from home. “I’m trying to build a little village around where I live,” he says, “and operate within this world of mine that I’ve built in Brooklyn.” Everyone in Preston’s life gathers here, from designers to interns and his wife Sabrina, the co-creative force behind the brand. “I have a great team that really believes in the vision,” he continues. “We’re really looking at doing this shit ourselves – not by ourselves, but our way.” In the background, house and dance music can be heard through his Devon Turnbull-designed OJAS speakers. Somewhere between the turntables and the garments strewn across the floor stand the racks holding his new collection. Or, in his own words, a “reset,” unveiled as Foundation: Blue Line Edit.

Even at the height of his brand’s success, right up until he reclaimed full ownership last July, Preston was designing out of his home. After all, he started his career hand-screen-printing t-shirts in San Francisco before moving to New York to study at Parsons School of Design. He would later meet collaborators who built Been Trill with him, the Tumblr-born collective formed with Virgil Abloh, Matthew Williams and Justin Saunders, which eventually led to working with Kanye West. This laid the groundwork for Preston to launch his own brand under New Guards Group in 2017, the Italian holding company with Off-White and Palm Angels on its books.

Throughout the mid to late 2010s, the brand’s neon orange label, heron logo and Cyrillic font tag were spotted on celebrities, supermodels and the cool kids who shaped the era. But, despite the promise of global expansion, New Guard’s corporate structure, acquisitions and financial troubles diluted what made the brand Preston’s. In July 2025, the designer won back full legal and commercial rights to his name, and celebrated the moment with a t-shirt that read ‘FREE AT LAST!’ In that sense, Foundation is a return to the clarity and intention that first shaped his work.

True to its name, the drop lays down the base of the brand’s new chapter. Built from wardrobe staples – shirts, denim, hoodies, and bomber jackets – they’re the pieces that everything else will grow from. “You can put a whole outfit together, from a walk in the street to a night out,” says Preston. The Blue Line Edit takes its name from the blue thread that secures the brand’s neon orange label, which is inverted this time and stripped of any texts or logos. But that blue thread is temporary, and eventually those lines will shift to black. “So, 20 years from now, you can be one of the guys to say, hey, I was around when the brand relaunched – ‘Look, I got the blue line!’” he says enthusiastically, pointing to the white shirt he’s wearing.

While it was once an obsession of hypebeasts, the brand has now entered a more mature and elevated chapter. Preston has grown up too. He’s a father now. “The story I’m telling is about a young guy and girl who’ve grown up, become more tasteful and experienced, but haven’t forgotten what they came from on the streets,” explains the designer.

In the conversation below, we speak with the San Francisco-born creative about the Blue Line Edit, his triumphant return to independent ownership, and what it means to build a foundation – both in fashion and in life.

There’s a lot from my past that I haven’t spoken about publicly. These are the growing pains I’ve lived through

You’re referring to the new chapter like an actual architectural teardown. What were the non-negotiable blocks you kept, and what did you leave behind?

Heron Preston: I thought about the long-time fans and customers. It was a contemplation of what was working and wasn’t, for the brand and for myself. It wasn’t an easy bucket to fill, but we had to bring back our icons and pieces that people love, like the heron bird. But we needed to make sure those iconic pieces return with a better fit and a more relevant feel, since a lot has shifted over the years. It also comes from looking at how every New Yorker dresses – looking at my own closet and my friend’s closets – and starting there.

There’s a lot from my past that I haven’t spoken about publicly. These are the growing pains I’ve lived through. When you’ve almost lost your brand, you start to hate everything, and then try to fall in love with it all over again. Once the house is rebuilt, that’s when the runway shows and the bigger statement pieces will come back. I’ve given myself one year to do that.

When you think of the bird and the Cyrillic word ‘style’ – elements that have shaped your universe for years – do you consider them archival, or as part of the DNA?

Heron Preston: I’d probably say both. It was introduced nearly a decade ago, but it’s still part of the DNA. I have the Cyrillic ‘style’ tattooed on my hand. There was this quote where it said something like, fashion is fleeting, but style is forever. The pieces I’m designing are built with a sense of timelessness. I really want them to feel wearable and for the entire globe to be able to see themselves. I read and listen a lot – from friends to reading comments online. I take a lot of codes and learnings from the past, like the work I’ve done at Calvin Klein.

What were the fabrics or the materials that you returned to this time in this reset? What was important for you?

Heron Preston: It was important for me to have our familiar fabrics like cotton, jersey, fleece, nylon – and we coated the pieces to feel as authentic to the military as possible. Everything is from the same factories from my past who were making all the best stuff. We’re introducing denim too, made from Candiani Italian denim. Factories actually reached out to me, asking, ‘Where are you? Where have you been? We miss you.’ I didn’t have relationships with my factories in the past. Everything’s still made in Europe, between Portugal and Italy. It’s funny – I’m an American brand, but everything is made in Europe.

Foundation: Blue Line Edit is presented as a small-batch framework. How are you rethinking scale, quantity, and volume this time around?

Heron Preston: Everything is see-now, buy-now, direct-to-consumer, ships immediately. Without being in the market for the past couple of years, I don’t know how it will turn out, but I’m very confident that it will perform really well. We’re starting small, producing everything at a minimum, and then building from there.

Is that also connected to how you’ve been vocal over the years about the fashion industry’s pollution?

Heron Preston: That’s one of the guiding principles of the brand: less is more. In the past, I felt overwhelmed because I wasn’t in control of the decision-making – I was always on the receiving end of other people’s ideas. It was like, ‘We see this really working in the marketplace, so instead of one bird hoodie, can you do a million?’ and I’d sit there thinking, ‘Why do we have to make so much?’ When I look at the market, I see people wearing that one bird hoodie, not twenty. So why don’t we focus on doing less?

Pieces were approved after one fitting, even if they didn’t feel right. And for a while, I haven’t been doing that as much because I’ve been behind the scenes, locked in Brooklyn on nonstop legal and advisory calls. That stuff is draining. How can you create? How can you feel inspired?

I can’t stress how important it is to keep ownership of your name... imagine what it’s like to ask for approval to execute an idea

What’s changed this time around?

Heron Preston: Now we’re designing with purpose. We’re developing our own recycled fabrics we call X-ray material, letting us inspect quality and the entire process inside and out. I also have an upcycled room tied to my Department of Sanitation New York project, which never reached its potential in my previous partnership. One piece we’re working on is a reusable bag made from a decommissioned 1960s navy parachute I found on eBay.

It feels more human to make fewer pieces. Each ‘Block’ [release] is exactly seven pieces, dropping gradually over the next year. It gives me and the customer space to reconnect with the brand without being hit with too many stories at once. They can finally move through this house I’m building and feel a clean curated space where they can breathe and learn about every piece. Graphics don’t really have a big place right now, because I really want to have a big moment for them this Spring/Summer.

What does a solid foundation look like for young aspiring creatives in fashion today?

Heron Preston: Retaining ownership of your property. I can’t stress how important it is to keep ownership of your name. That's really how you give yourself the green button to press go. As a creative person, inspiration strikes at any time. But imagine what it’s like to then take the ball of inspiration and have to ask for approval to execute that idea, just to be met with maybe, or yes, or no. At this point in time, everything is, ‘let’s give it a try’. You can only do that when you have ownership of your own brand.

I do have one last question – a very New York-coded question. What makes you confident?

Heron Preston: Oh my God, what makes me confident? It’s surrounding myself with love – the feedback of my wife, daughter, friends, parents. It’s the encouragement, the love and the belief in my ideas. Knowing I have people in my corner who truly root for me. I have a daughter who looks up to me, and I’m a teacher now, which comes with being a parent. All that love around me is what keeps me going.

Block 1 the Foundation: Blue Line Edit is now available on heronpreston.com, with Block 2 available December 11.