Featured Testimonial About Creighton University
By Jon Nyatawa
Two thousand hand-stitched, cashmere sweaters. That was the request from the luxury retailer that wanted to help launch Creighton alumna Rachelle Hruska MacPherson’s brand at New York Fashion Week in 2016.
The only catch? Net-a-Porter needed 2,000 sweaters needed to be done in less than two months.
Hruska MacPherson, BA’05, had no fabric, no website, no team. Just her memory of the stitch she’d learned from her grandma Rita, and the help of the amazing, eventual-company-president that she met on Craigslist.
“I hung up the phone, and I was almost delirious, because that was a huge deal to have Net-a-Porter, the best high-end brand, want to launch you,” Hruska MacPherson said. “But it was also that moment where you realize, ‘Oh. I have to get to work.’”
She’s maintained that mindset ever since.
Her brand – Lingua Franca – did indeed launch in 2016. Hruska MacPherson found a workspace and hired a team. They sold out of those 2,000 sweaters, and the orders never seemed to stop.
And then, the word really got out. All of a sudden, Oprah Winfrey and Martha Stewart were wearing her trendy, customized designs. There was the time that Meryl Streep went on The Ellen Show wearing a Lingua Franca sweater and pulled two more out of a sack to give to host Ellen DeGeneres and fellow guest Tom Hanks.
Last year, Hruska MacPherson brought a collection to Paris for the first time. In February, Hruska MacPherson had her first ready-to-wear runway show for Lingua Franca at a Manhattan hotel in conjunction with New York Fashion Week.
“It’s sort of like a train that is going so fast and you’re hanging on for dear life every day,” Hruska MacPherson said. “There is a little bit of luck, a little bit of kismet, and just being swept up. But I have been willing to work hard. There's definitely a part of me that could have said, ‘That’s impossible. I can't make that happen.’ But I've never been like that.”
She just hasn’t always been a professional fashion designer.
Hruska MacPherson was on a pre-med track at Creighton, majoring in psychology with the goal of one day helping children. She graduated with that plan.
But a detour for self-exploration in New York City ended up inspiring her to tap into her creative side.
Her first venture was a success. It started out as a blog, Guest of the Guest, where she reported on the events and social happenings within New York’s high society. It eventually transformed into a website and digital media company.
Hruska MacPherson was featured by the New York Times, included on the New York Post’s 13 Under 30 Women to Watch list and named one of Fast Company’s Most Influential Women in Technology.
“I do think that I've always been interested in people, learning about culture, and helping people tell their stories,” she said. “How people work and how they interact with each other, that is what drew me to psychology in the first place.”
And it’s inspired her fashion.
Lingua Franca began by selling hand-knitted garments with personalized messages and themes. Each piece was customized for the customer. A story in a sweater.
Her late mother-in-law, Janet MacPherson, was a trailblazing surfer and a role model for female empowerment. “My muse,” Hruska MacPherson said.
Janet often rode the waves wearing cashmere, and she did it well into her 70s. Hruska MacPherson made her a turquoise sweater, with “outlaw” stitched in blue.
The brand’s first collection was unveiled in 2022. Nebraskaland. That project captured the authenticity and beauty of her childhood.
The photoshoot was conducted in two towns in Nebraska — on her family’s farm outside of Ulysses (population: 191) and at her grandmother’s house in Ceresco, a town of around 1,000 people about 20 miles north of Lincoln.
“That whole season was really about my upbringing, and it was fun to share that through fashion,” Hruska MacPherson said.
So much of Hruska MacPherson’s successes seem to be a product of her roots.
Her dad was one of 13 kids. Grandma Rita handmade all their clothes and taught her granddaughter the stem stich technique — “a funky way to stitch a straight line, almost like a stem of a flower,” she said.
Hruska MacPherson grew up with a heart to help and serve. Creighton’s Jesuit values reinforced the importance of giving back. Lingua Franca has helped raise over a million dollars for more than 200 charities.
She’s driven and persistent — definitely not one to sit still. That’s always been true.
Hruska MacPherson started experimenting with embroidery because a therapist advised that an activity for her hands might help her ease the anxiety caused by postpartum depression. She picked up one of her mother-in-law’s old sweaters, etched the word “booyah” on the front and posted it to Instagram.
Even now, she doesn’t mind stepping away from family for a moment to answer a phone call or solve a company dilemma.
An international family vacation will usually end up including a trip to a local marketplace or cultural hotspot (she’s always on the hunt for fabrics, and new ideas). She’s sent boxes home from Italy, and Japan, and India.
“It's such a trope, but if you can find your passion, that's kind of the point of life — one of them, at least,” she said. “I feel so lucky. I'm so psyched to be doing what I'm doing. It's very hard, but it doesn't feel like work. I don't know who I would be without it.”
