Artist, entrepreneur, real estate magnate, and mom. Laurie Lynn Stark is on top of the world. She&rsquo;s blazing new trails, and improving the planet along the way.&nbsp;

By PHILIPPE COMBRES&nbsp; Photography by Pablo gonzalez Richard and Laurie Lynn Stark, the founders of the Los Angeles-based rebellious luxury brand Chrome Hearts&mdash; together with their three children also known as the &ldquo;Starks&rdquo;&mdash;have just won one of the most honorary titles in US fashion, the Geoffrey Beene Lifetime Achievement Award at the CFDA 2022 Fashion Awards.
It is a great chance for us to have the Starks here in St Barth, as new residents, with a climate-conscious approach to their lifestyle.
For this issue of L&rsquo;Officiel St Barth, Laurie Lynn has agreed to play the game of &ldquo;guest editor.&rdquo; She tells us about her commitments, and her family&mdash;the foundation of her life. She performs at the portrait session with her rockstar daughter Jessie Jo, and her prodigy son Kristian, who opened the St Barths flagship store.
We spent many long hours together discussing our passion for the Island of St Barth and how we can bring something more for the community here. So expect some more waves coming soon...
From Florence to Hollywood, and back again to St Barth, Chrome Hearts cofounder Laurie Lynn Stark is determined to create a zero-waste fashion empire. She&rsquo;s planting community gardens, rebuilding the coral, and photographing everything en route. L&rsquo;Officiel Magazine sat down with her to find out how she does it all.
PHILIPPE COMBRES: When did you first fall in love with St Barth? <span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0px;">LAURIE LYNN STARK: The first time I came was fifteen years ago with Gilles Bensimon and Diana Picasso, and they took me to Rudolph Nureyev&rsquo;s house. I barely saw the island the whole time. Gilles said, &ldquo;We don&rsquo;t want to go into town. We just want to go to Gouverneur, Saline, and Flamands.&rdquo; So, I didn&rsquo;t see much of the island, but it was one of the most romantic weeks. Diana is very artistic, so we were just making art, drinking coffee, drinking wine. It was crazy. A beautiful time. And I fell in love with the island. I decided, I have to buy something here. Now, with my son&rsquo;s vision, we have opened a store and invested in the island.

PC: Did you always plan to open a Chrome Hearts on St Barth? LLS: Not really. On my first trip Gilles said, &ldquo;You should open a store. People are going to come here.&rdquo; But we couldn&rsquo;t open a store then. I wish we could have opened a store, but it wasn&rsquo;t the time. We were concentrating on other markets. We were opening in London, Paris, Asia. It was in 2019 that we opened Chrome Hearts in St Barth.
PC: How is the St Barth location of Chrome Hearts performing? <span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0px;">LLS: Instantly it was one of the best stores. Ridiculous. We were packed and so successful right away. I figured we might sell some bikinis, but we are selling everything; jewelry, leather, everything. In the two weeks after the opening, we were sold out. We&rsquo;re always sold out.
PC: Has being a resident and business owner changed your outlook on St Barth? <span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0px;">LLS: Absolutely. My perception is I don&rsquo;t want to take from the island and not give back. I teach my kids that, in addition to recognizing the business opportunity, it&rsquo;s equally important to look after the island, hire locally, and protect the environment. It&rsquo;s important to be aware of the problems on the island caused by tourism, while at the same time feeding the tourism, because it&rsquo;s a tourist island. So how do you balance that? What can I bring to the island that the island doesn&rsquo;t have already? I&rsquo;m a beekeeper. I&rsquo;m an avid gardener, and I make canned vegetables from my gardens. The flowers in my homes are from my gardens. I don&rsquo;t like importing things. I like living off the land. So, when I met the locals, they taught me that there are only bees in certain spots. There&rsquo;s not a lot of vegetation you can eat. There are not a lot of opportunities for fresh produce here, except for what is imported. There aren&rsquo;t a lot of resources for water filtration systems, which I think should be legally mandated in all the villas.I want to get involved and help change that. I&rsquo;m championing efforts to rebuild the coral. When I dive, I see the coral desperately trying to replenish itself, but we need help. We need marine biologists to volunteer their time. I think people settle when things are hard, but I ask myself, &ldquo;Why can&rsquo;t we fix the coral?&rdquo;
 PC: I understand you are working on a special garden project for St Barth? <span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0px;">LLS: Yes, we&rsquo;re doing a garden with a friend of mine, Xavier. He is a local, and he has a beautiful garden that&rsquo;s in the middle of town (La Pointe, Gustavia). The idea is to bring local friends into the project, all pitching in and making this garden beautiful, whether it be the landscape architect, the plant guy, the construction man. There will be vegetables, herbs, flowers, native plants, everything, and a beautiful showcase of collected rainwater nourishing the garden. When people see this project, they&rsquo;ll realize they only need a small space to create something beautiful. Hopefully people will see the bees, the butterflies, the lizards, and be inspired to create their own gardens, and eventually, it will enhance the ecosystem of St Barth. Everyone can do it. This project will showcase ways that locals can create their own garden in whatever space they have available.

PC: At Chrome Hearts, are you transitioning to a more sustainable manufacturing model? <span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0px;">LLS: Yes. I&rsquo;m working with a factory in Portugal, which is focused on sustainable and conscious manufacturing. I just invested in 2 factories in Italy where we not only use sustainable fabrication, but we focus on ecological ways to make, cut, color, and wash the fabrics. We question everything; how we dispose of waste, packaging, our shipping methods. Europe has very strict Certification Stamping in manufacturing, and it&rsquo;s great. The entire production cycle had to be analyzed and modified. It is very difficult to change your business models after thirty years, but we have been implementing these modifications for two years now. So, every division is changing subtly. We had to reteach everyone. For example, we started doing eyewear in recycled plastics, but that isn&rsquo;t enough. We changed the way we polish the product and overhauled the runoff systems. We changed the plastic packaging to eco-friendly recycled plastic, the bags are made from scrap materials, the shipping fill is biodegradable, an on and on it goes. It&rsquo;s a fight every step of the way, but I don&rsquo;t care. I want to know there&rsquo;s no waste.
PC: In addition to being a revered business woman, you are a celebrated artist as well. LLS: I do fine art photography. I also paint, and I&rsquo;m starting to make sculpture as well. But with my photography, I have exhibited all over the world. I worked with Reiner Opoku (co-founder of Parley) in St. Moritz. He&rsquo;s wonderful, and he pushed me as an artist. He was one of the first art agents that told me I have to show and sell my art. It was really hard for me. I was like, &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think I&rsquo;m good enough for this.&rdquo; I was very insecure, but he was behind me, pushing me. I got chills because I was a young artist and I had to put up these huge pictures in St. Moritz. I had no idea what I was doing. And we did an entire hotel. It was a gorgeous exhibition. Now, the money I make selling art notes back to environmental causes. Everything goes to charity.
PC: How do you encourage and support the next generation of artists? LLS: I work with a gallery in Miami that has an artist-in- residence program. Some of these kids have gone on to become big artists. One of my art directors started as an artist-in-residence. I found a woman from Ukraine, whose art I really loved, and we brought her over. She had never been to America, and she sold every painting. Shortly after, the war broke out, we held a second show at the Venice Biennale to raise money and bring awareness to young artists from Ukraine. I like to empower young artists. A lot of young artists can&rsquo;t afford a camera, a canvas, paint, nothing. They can&rsquo;t afford to just get started.

The Stark Wave: Laurie Lynn Stark

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