When asked about who he thinks is approaching the conversation effectively, Gordon points to his friend Aurora James, who recently challenged retailers to stock shelves in keeping with population data. “She’s a fashion designer, she has a successful line of shoes, but this activist voice that was always present has now gotten stronger than ever,” he says. “In a very short amount of time, [she] is changing the way people think about vendor assortments in stores and how they’re approaching that business.”
Despite being surrounded by screens (Gordon says his iPhone dies twice a day these days), he has taken solace in being in nature. “It’s been really inspiring,” he says. “The promise of nature doesn’t go away. And, despite all of the terrible things that are going on in the world, the daffodils still come up, and the apple blossoms still bloom, and I think there’s something really poetic about that.” While he’s usually an avid reader, Gordon has had a hard time concentrating on books—with thrillers as the notable exception. “To actually be calm enough to sit and immerse myself in a book and get lost is a challenge.” he says, His bedside book stack, courtesy of his mother, who works in a bookstore in Atlanta, keeps growing. “You can’t go from watching the news about everything that’s happening in the world right now and [read] a heavy book, it’s not going to do the trick.”
Instead Gordon has been perusing coffee-table books and photos from trips. “This is kind of a moment when you can digest all of that, the creative imagery and ideas you’ve taken in but never really had time to process,” he says. He points to a book by the photographer Eric Madigan Heck: “I love color, and everything I do at Herrera is basically about color, and his photography, I think, looks like paintings. He’s very talented.”
His dog, Bird, spent the spring “rearing” chicks. “It’s her favorite time of year,” he says, “I don’t know what’s going through her mind when they arrive, but her ultra-maternal instincts come out and she tries to sit with them all day.” Like much of his life, even the chickens are selected for aesthetics. “I curate our chickens based on the beautiful egg colors. I have some that are [light] green, some pale blue, ivory, chocolate brown, olive green, and it’s so fun.”
Gordon tries to keep his body healthy through virtual sessions with his trainer, Ngo. “I do FaceTime working out, but I need to get back to real-life working out because I’m my own worst enemy,” he says, “and I’ve found all these ways to cheat on FaceTime. I hope he doesn’t read this.”
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