Carolina Herrera (Q1951)
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New York-based fashion house
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Carolina Herrera |
New York-based fashion house |
Statements
1981
founder
3 references
2018
Creative Director
2016
senior vice president of design
Wes Gordon has spent his early years at Carolina Herrera exploring the house founder’s origin story. For pre-fall, he flipped the script, delving into his own. His new collection is inspired by the dolls his mom kept and made clothes for as a young girl in the 1950s and ’60s. He remembers them from his own childhood, and with a new baby girl at home, he asked his mom to send him the dolls so the tradition can be extended. “Really for me,” he said, “it was revisiting my first interaction with fashion, like a Proustian kind of sensory flashback.”The unique starting point produced a pre-fall lineup with a lot of whimsy, more than usual chez Herrera, where decorousness still rules the day even if Gordon is designing for a new generation. You can see that playfulness in the oversize gauge of the sweaters, which were designed to look like doll-size clothes knit with human-size needles, and in the giant buttons that accent the tailoring. Again, his mom used stray buttons from her own clothes for her toys’ outfits. A shift dress embellished with large rhinestone encrusted bows down the front was another doll-like touch.But it wasn’t all fun and games. Gordon experimented with grown-up silhouettes, too. These included the pencil skirts he extended to the floor (these are about to be a trend, as you’ll know if you’ve read our other pre-fall coverage), which he paired with shirts worn unbuttoned and tied at the waist, and the gowns—a serious business at Herrera—which were color-blocked in sophisticated combinations.
5 December 2024
Last year, Carolina Herrera was the first American label to join the sisterhood of the traveling pre-collection shows, staging its resort collection in Rio de Janeiro. This year, designer Wes Gordon continued his tour through Latin America, bringing the show to Mexico City’s famed Museo Anacahualli, designed by Diego Rivera to house his vast collection of Pre-Columbian and Pre-Hispanic artifacts. “I knew from the beginning that we were showing at Anacahualli,” he said a day before the show. “Color is how I always start my process, and the idea of those sunset colors hitting a volcanic rock was really inspiring to me.”And so, a few minutes past six o’ clock, as the blue sky began to turn shades of light pink and yellow, the first model stepped onto the runway wearing a voluminous silk ballgown on which an orange-hot sun bisects a peony pink background. From there, a brilliant color palette burst forward in Frida Kahlo blues, cacao seed burgundies, and grassy greens. A champagne double-faced silk A-line skirt revealed its bold blue underside as the model swung her hips, while on another burgundy dress, folded sleeves revealed a slash of fuchsia.But Gordon didn’t just pay homage to Mexico through his use of color; he also invited four Mexican artisans to collaborate on a series of one-of-a-kind garments. From Hidalgo, María de los Ángeles Licona added her traditional embroidery to cotton separates, including voluminous blouses that were among the collection’s most covetable pieces—especially a green version embroidered in pink thread. Virginia Verónica Arce from Tlaxcala did intricate lace-like embroidery on ribbons of black silk which Gordon used to piece together a kicky short dress and a supremely elegant long gown with a halter neck that closed the show. Also from Tlaxcala was the ceramicist Jacqueline España, whose work unexpectedly embellished the collars of mod-ish shift dresses, and more winningly, the lapels of a double-breasted slouchy blue jacket. The jewelry was made by Araceli Nibra Matadamas from Oaxaca, using jicara, which she hand-painted to match the floral print that also appeared on dresses in the collection. It was inspired by the Mercado Jamaica flower market, “as if you’re looking down at all the different buckets of flowers.”“I think of these pieces as a real collaboration,” Gordon said of working with the artisans. “There was nothing forced. We worked on the pieces and suggested areas [that they could embellish] and sent it to them.
” After the last model left the runway, Gordon came out and walked towards where the four women designers were sitting in the front row and applauded them, before taking his customary bow.This season marks Carolina Herrera’s first foray into see now-buy now territory. “There’s so much excitement and energy generated by a destination show like this; we wanted to give our clients the opportunity to channel that immediately into instant gratification rather than waiting three or four months,” he explained. To further emphasize the instant gratification angle, the lineup also featured Gordon’s five-piece capsule collection with Frame that includes a cropped denim jacket and mini-skirt—a cheeky take on a ladylike suit—and a denim ball skirt, all in the collection’s rich hues. The looks that mixed pieces from the main collection with the Frame collaboration were the strongest examples of how Gordon has not only maintained the Carolina Herrera mandate for glamour and opulence, but has also added a more real-life, down-to-earth energy that can appeal to women of all ages. “It’s wearable, it’s easy, it’s happy.”
14 November 2024
We’ve been talking about a changing of the guard at New York Fashion Week since we returned to in-person shows post-COVID. Carolina Herrera is the last brand you’d put in that league; Mrs. Herrera launched the brand 40 or so years ago in the go-go 1980s. But more and more, the label that Wes Gordon inherited from her in 2019 looks like a young woman’s brand, with a sexy freshness that most of the time doesn’t compromise the sense of circumstance long associated with the Herrera name.Take the series of stretch-jersey dresses near the end of the show. Midi length with a knotted neckline or long with a plunging V in pink, and in a floral halter style that had the look of swimwear, they’re comfort-forward and easy wearing in a way that’s new here. Or consider the boxy black “boyfriend” so oversize it almost obscured the white shorts underneath; the materials may be elevated, but at the foundation it’s as casual a look as can be. Pairing embroidered single-breasted, collarless jackets with capri pants gave even Gordon’s tailoring a playful, cheeky edge.All that said, the 28 Liberty Street venue, with its Noguchi sunken garden and, at street level, its Jean Dubuffet trees, suggested that Gordon hasn’t forgotten Herrera’s well-bred roots. He honored her codes, from the extravagant sleeve (see a black cotton one-sleeve dress) to polka dots (lots of them, including on a crocheted minidress and a compact knit bandeau top and tube skirt set), turning out clothes for all sorts of occasions, not just fancy parties. But don’t worry, he didn’t neglect the fancy frocks.With the ensconcement of the new guard, there are very few New York resources for a proper, scene-stealing ball gown anymore. Enter Gordon’s strapless black-on-white polka-dotted number, ruffles decorating its drop waist above a full, floor-sweeping skirt. “I was chasing the wow,” he said backstage. Great quote, even better dress.
9 September 2024
The Carolina Herrera show was 41 floors up in the financial district, with Mount Olympus–level views of Manhattan and Brooklyn. But the crowd only had eyes for Demi Moore, the 61-year-old star, burning up the screen inFeud: Capote vs. the Swansas Ann Woodward, an actress who may or may not have murdered her husband (Truman Capote said she definitely did). As a culture, women like Woodward fascinate us for their willingness to veer from their gender’s traditional script, acting out their rage in a way that’s more typical of men. Astute listeners might’ve also noted songs from Sofia Vergara’s new seriesGriseldaon the soundtrack, Griselda Blanco being another woman who didn’t take anything lying down.Not coincidentally, Wes Gordon was talking about beauty and power before the Herrera show. “This season, to me, is really about beauty as strength, and strength as beauty, and kind of shattering the idea that the two are mutually exclusive,” he said. “I think beauty is power, and I wanted every look to feel powerful.”Power isn’t a topic that’s come up often in Gordon’s backstage conversations, but his line of thinking proved fruitful. This collection has a lot of verve and confidence. That doesn’t mean Herrera’s feminine signatures went out the window. There were plenty of flowers and ruffles and big sleeves of the kind that Mrs. Herrera was famous for wearing (today she was in a violet pant suit). It’s just that they were interspersed with more streamlined and architectural designs, like the turtleneck and cigarette pants with an asymmetrical swoop of a skirt spiraling down one leg; or a zip-front basque-hip tank and palazzo pants, not in silk faille or some other uber-fine fabric, but dark denim.For evening, Gordon pointed out a pair of hoop-skirt dresses, one to the ankles and one to the floor, that had been constructed without the layers of tulle petticoats that would’ve accompanied them in the past, rendering them more modern and easy to wear. The most tempting of after-dark options was those dresses’ opposite, a slender wisp of a thing in black with a plunging décolletage worthy of Madame X, who, as it happens, was another decorous woman who did things her own way.
12 February 2024
In his nearly six years at Carolina Herrera designer Wes Gordon has taken inspiration from many of Mrs. Herrera’s creations, but never from the designer herself. Being one of the most-photographed designers in the world, and by famous names from Horst P. Horst to Robert Mapplethorpe, Herrera is a rich subject. Looking at her biography and the many beautiful images of her collected in a 2004 book subtitledPortrait of an Iconwas an instinct, Gordon felt, whose time had come.Herrera is Venezuelan. She spent the first half of her life, up until 40, in that country, before moving with her family to New York and, in short order, setting up her brand. “Her time at La Vega [her husband’s family’s estate] was like a romance novel, a dream,” Gordon says. “Then she moved here and her wardrobe changed, there was a real working-woman vibe.” His new collection reflects that trajectory, alternating between skin-baring dresses in subtropical colors and a black skirt suit with a feminine curved neckline, or between floral shirt dresses and bouclé tweed separates with gold chain detailing.The lookbook has been styled with signature Herrera flourishes including a black net veil of the kind she wore in a 1979 portrait by Mapplethorpe and the colored gemstone earrings she chose for a sitting with Andy Warhol that resulted in one of his famous colorful silkscreens. She’d likely approve of a high evening look that combined a white blouse with voluminous sleeves (one of her signatures) with a long column skirt pavéd in crystals. A colorblocked gown with a celadon bodice and a grass-green full skirt captured the grandeur Herrera was known for, but in a more casual register—a nifty trick.
6 December 2023
Wes Gordon swapped the Plaza Hotel for the Whitney Museum of American Art and put on his biggest show so far at Carolina Herrera. It's been five years since he took over from the brand founder. There wasn’t any big to-do about an anniversary, but it’s no small accomplishment to hit the five-year mark in today’s fashion industry, when designers are moved in and out of creative director positions so regularly, and even superstars are shown the door. So hats off to him.He opened with a white shirt, Mrs. Herrera’s signature piece and the garment that earned her the nickname “our lady of the sleeves,” but much of the rest of the collection seemed designed to say it’s his Herrera now. I’m thinking of the yellow mini crini dress or the lilac lace bra top and matching skirt, several inches of bare midriff between them, or the strapless black silk tunic and full-legged trousers. “I really was just thinking of pieces that I want my girlfriends to wear,” Gordon said backstage.A lot has changed since Carolina and Oscar were dressing the Park Avenue crowd, not least of all the casualization of daywear. When jog bras and performance leggings qualify as fashion, it tests designers to come up with their own equivalencies. Gordon makes a point of using cotton for a lot of things that might have once been made in fancier materials, and he also mixes sportswear with evening pieces. The last look, for example, was a black version of that opening white shirt, paired with a silver sequined pencil skirt. Another of his tendencies has been to de-emphasize floor-length dresses in favor of less formal options. This season was no exception, but a striped powderpuff tulle style demonstrated that, when called upon, he can give good gown.
12 September 2023
All week, Wes Gordon was watching the Rio weather like a hawk. The Carolina Herrera designer had brought his resort show to the Brazilian beach town in a first for the New York label. “Herrera has such a strong connection to Latin America, and the idea of Rio just felt so mesmerizing and captivating,” he said at a preview in the brand’s Seventh Avenue showroom last month. (With a healthy fragrance business in Brazil, Rio made for an ideal spot to launch and celebrate a new fragrance, too.)Earlier today, the sun came out, but by evening, the clouds arrived, and despite a promising rainbow over the Santa Teresa neighborhood where the show would take place, the skies opened. But rain or shine, the show must go on—and after a lengthy delay Caroline Trentini emerged on the blush-pink, puddle-filled runway. Her ruffled floral off-the-shoulder dress accessorized with a polka dotted belt and matching sandals was simultaneously sexy and elegant.Gordon has never shied away from a bold, colorful palette or exuberant prints; but showing in Rio gave him an excuse to go wild. A mango-yellow gown had voluminous sleeves elaborately draped to resemble flowers, and its thigh-high slit was accentuated by an oversized bow; a cotton eyelet bralette was worn with a matching ball-skirt, both dyed a fantastic shade of acid green; and yes, that was Isabeli Fontana wiggle-walking in an orange crochet tank top and matching skirt.There were sporty separates in summer-light twill, and a terrific short suit (worn with a matching crop top) in a herringbone-patterned corded twill that looked like seersucker. Another standout was a mosaic-pattern floral used on a flirty, strapless a-line mini dress. “It was a strike-off that the mill sent to show me all the different colors they were proposing, but we loved the mix,” Gordon explained. The laidback feeling that he wanted for the collection extended into his own process—why not just do all the colors at once?As the models walked down the runway, some barefoot and carrying their shoes in their hands, with genuine smiles on their faces while it rained all around them, I was struck by how perfectly the scene captured the essence of the Carolina Herrera woman: elegant, but strong, and ready to have a good time—no matter the elements.“We realized the rain wasn’t going to let up,” Gordon said after the show, visibly emotional. “We said ‘oh, we’ll shoot a video inside,’ but all the girls insisted on walking.
” Pointing out that many of them are Brazilian, he continued, “they were singing songs, cheering, clapping. The show happened because of the models. It was the most emotional I think I’ve ever been.”
1 June 2023
New York designers are divided into two camps, those who are meeting the darkness of the moment with understatement and in some cases austerity, and others who are responding with color, verve, and joie de vivre. It should come as no surprise that Carolina Herrera’s Wes Gordon is on the side of joy. “This house exists and has existed for so long because it promises to women who come to us something that makes them feel beautiful and happy,” he said. He has a personal reason to be happy, too. He and his husband welcomed their second child last week, a little girl. He put “Georgia on My Mind” on the soundtrack in her honor.We were back in a ballroom at the Plaza for today’s show. As the models emerged from backstage, they paused before descending a staircase. That was fitting: Gordon specializes in entrance makers, no matter the occasion. Beforehand he said he likes to blend the distinctions between day and night, which meant that a short skirt suit was embellished with clusters of large crystals, while a fitted sheath was cut from yellow and white striped cotton poplin. Gordon is feeling more at home at Herrera than ever. Backstage he mentioned the Netflix seriesThe Empress, which centers around the 19th century Viennese court of Sisi of Austria; he identifies with it because “the same combination is what made Mrs. Herrera and what made the house—that discipline and severity with the flamboyance.”There were outliers here in the form of a few sculpted tulle creations that leaned more eccentric than flamboyant, but otherwise Gordon struck a lot of the right notes: a colorful floral print strapless gown banded with black stripes was inspired by an old porcelain print, a purple and green blanc de chine used for another voluptuously draped long dress came from a 19th century woodblock print he found. “We’ve been working with fabric mills to develop textiles that have been kind of endangered species on New York runways for two decades,” he said. A pair of colorblocked ensembles packed a lot of punch despite the simplicity of the pieces that formed them. Chartreuse, berry pink, and red; or red, purple, and lilac—it’s hard not to be happy around colors like that.
13 February 2023
Carolina Herrera’s Wes Gordon dressed Adele for a performance over the weekend at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, where she’s in the midst of a month’s long residency. It was a nice bit of synergy; Gordon’s concept for the pre-fall collection that the label started showing to buyers on Monday is divas: Maria Callas, Cher, and Mrs. Herrera herself—“women who are metaphorically or literally in the spotlight, and dress for it,” he explained. “Thats our woman.”Picture Callas on stage receiving a rose bouquet. That was Gordon’s starting point for the collection’s many floral prints, be they on a georgette evening dress as fluid and fluttery as a slip or on a tightly gathered strapless cocktail number backed with black stretch crepe for an hourglass fit. He paired different florals top to bottom and threw in contrasting flower print belts and shoes, too—“if they’re bright and bold enough, it works,” he said. Hearts were a recurring motif, as well, both in print form and as sculptural details including the draped taffeta hearts inset into the bodices of a pair of party dresses.Gordon likes the look of a solid colored sheath, in dark denim, or olive gabardine, say, that could almost count as minimal if it weren’t for its curve-enhancing cut. But more often than not this collection leaned flamboyant—for divas of every stripe. There’s a Cher-worthy strapless jumpsuit with tiered gazar ruffles spilling down the calves, and (dialing back the decades) an operatic evening dress with a whittled underskirt peeking out from underneath a blossoming over skirt. Showing off a white tulle pouf embellished with heart-shaped silver paillettes, he said, “ I hope someone wears this to her wedding.” Brides to be out there, any takers?
7 December 2022
We were at The Plaza Hotel for Carolina Herrera today. Backstage, designer Wes Gordon pointed out that the house founder put on a show here herself back in 1984. Fashion, by its nature, is about the past, present, and future, but that doesn’t mean balancing brand heritage and the demands of modernity is an easy job. Chez Herrera, Gordon has been at it for nearly five years, and this spring collection was his most assured yet. Though it was a thoughtful gesture, the location didn’t really have anything to do with it. His confidence came from the rightness of these clothes.Take the first look, which combined a navy-and-white bias striped cotton blouse with a yellow floral chiné ball skirt. It’s pure Herrera. “I feel really at home and comfortable now,” Gordon said. “The key is to just embrace making beautiful, happy clothes and not apologize for that. That sense of joy is what our clients come to us for.”Joy has lately been in short supply. So Gordon made a point of printing florals on a range of materials; beyond that chiné, there was ball-ready silk faille, delicate silk chiffon, even sturdy cotton gabardine which he cut into a well-fitted trench. A strapless red number from which a sculptural red rose detail bloomed over one shoulder was fresh off the plane from the Toronto International Film Festival, where Kate Hudson wore it to the premiere ofGlass Onion: A Knives Out Story. But happiness is a 24-hour-a-day operation here. Gordon pointed out that there were fewer special occasion gowns than usual.To round out the collection, he showed striped and solid stretch knit numbers; a pair of white hand-crocheted styles finished with black ribbon; a couple of dark-rinse denim dresses, both punctuated by a wide waist-cinching belt; and a plunge-front bustier jumpsuit—different, but still familiar. Mrs. H. gave him a thumbs up as he zipped down the runway for his bow.
12 September 2022
For the better part of two years, parties were called off and grand plans were canceled. At Carolina Herrera, Wes Gordon is recalibrating for a world that’s getting back its joie de vivre. For resort, he said he imagined a trip to the Riviera—think ’90s supermodels shot by Helmut Newton and Grace Kelly inTo Catch a Thief. “It’s the fantasy of escapism made reality,” he explained.The experience of the pandemic has impacted Gordon’s design approach. The best pieces in this new collection emphasize approachability and ease. The cherry print dresses? Whether they’re off-the-shoulder and full-skirted or asymmetrical and hourglass, he cut them in cotton. Ditto the sundress and shirtdress in blue-and-white banker stripes. “It’s softer,” he said. “We took the crinoline out.”Pinstripe suiting, in turn, has been given a flirty makeover. There’s a nipped waist coat dress and a sexy twisted strap bustier top worn with matching pants. These pieces aren’t headed to a board meeting any time soon, but definitely a cocktail party or a Cannes premiere, speaking of the Riviera. The classic white cotton shirt, a Carolina Herrera signature, got a rethink of its own, with dramatic cowls-cum-hoods. (The extravagant hats are by the Parisian milliner Laurence Bossion.)Crinoline hasn’t entirely left the picture. He dressed his Met Gala date, actress Tessa Thompson, in clouds of baby pink tulle. Here, he added a bustle of black net to the back of a fitted coat dress, and cut a strapless party dress with a celebrity-length double train.
8 June 2022
Wes Gordon has been back on the road, meeting clients and showing off his spring collection for Carolina Herrera. He said it’s his favorite part of the job, second only to fitting the clothes to start with. “Our customer is looking for pieces that celebrate the moment. She wants the wow from Herrera—to live in the moment, to get dressed.”With that in mind, Gordon kept this collection characteristically upbeat, injecting it with a really playful streak. To start, there were nods to Mrs. Herrera: a blouse, jacket, and coat dress, all with the sort of dramatic full sleeves she favored. A fitted white shirt and fuchsia silk moiré ball skirt had her name all over it, too. She specialized in a sort of practical grandeur. Gordon’s reinterpretation, which followed a few looks later, combined a snug black cardigan with black cigarette pants topped by a split-front ball skirt. Meghan Markle watchers will recall a red number Gordon made for her late last year along similar lines.Ariana DeBose, Alexandra Daddario, Sabrina Carpenter, Alisha Boe, and Faouzia lined Gordon’s front row. These are not the ladies who lunch of Herrera’s era, but millennial multi-hyphenates. Hence the preponderance of short, leggy, ’60s-style shapes, the party dresses with corseted bodices and “floating” bra cups, and the cloudbursts of plissé tulle. A strapless dress collaged from large, whimsical flowers embroidered in metallic sequins would be a charming choice for a young star’s first Oscars. For a nominee, Mrs. Herrera would endorse a strapless marigold column gown with an overskirt. She nodded and pointed enthusiastically as it glided by.Some looks drifted off message: The Fauvist florals had exuberance but not gravitas, and a plunge-front, jet-bead-embroidered jumpsuit leaned towards excessive raciness. But the best pieces had the wow factor that Gordon says the Herrera woman is craving. At the end of the show, he brought out the patternmakers Miro Hermes and François Bouchet, who are retiring after 22 years and 19 years at the label, respectively. A lovely gesture.
14 February 2022
Wes Gordon created costumes for one of the performances at the American Ballet Theatre’s fall gala. The experience left a big impression on him. His pre-fall collection for Carolina Herrera is inspired by dance, but not just of the ballet variety; there are numbers here with a Bob Mackie-dresses-Cher vibe, and others that channel Mrs. Herrera à la flamenco.The takeaway is exuberance. Even when he’s working in an everyday—and presumably entry-level price point—material like cotton, Gordon brings the drama, whether that’s with extreme puffed sleeves, or a waistline whittled by ruching. More often than not, though, he’s designing special occasion attire. It’s no surprise that the red column dress with blooming overskirt worn by Meghan Markle to the Salute to Freedom Gala at the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum earlier this fall opens this lookbook. With a red carpet moment like that, he’s bound to sell a lot of those.Gordon loves a bow, and this collection was rife with them: replacing buttons on a trim car coat, spanning the back of a cocktail dress, trailing behind another like train. He’s plenty fond of flowers and ruffles too. A yellow gladiola print on a purple ground was eye-catching and on brand, where the ruffles tracing the back of over-the-knee boots were something of a departure.Exuberance, of course, has always been essential chez Herrera. Where she brought a sense of grandeur to the mix, Gordon just as often imbues his clothes with a cheeky youthfulness: the flashes of midriff on a sweetheart bodice dress, the yards and yards of tulle trimmed into topiary shapes on another party number, a corseted balconette that clasps the torso of a shorts suit. A stirrup-heeled jumpsuit with an extravagant sweep of baby blue ruffle across the bodice has cross-generational potential.
8 December 2021
The new 89th Street outpost of Salon 94 played host to the Carolina Herrera show. Its high-ceilinged gallery was likely a ballroom 100 years ago, and the ballgowns were back tonight. Over the last few seasons, with the lockdowns of the pandemic, designer Wes Gordon was focused on lower-key fare. But as the culmination of the brand’s 40th anniversary celebrations and in anticipation of a post-pandemic reemergence—at last—Gordon made a showcase of Herrera’s trademark sense of occasion. A black-and-white striped duchesse satin strapless long dress, and a full-skirted gown with voluminous sleeves in red silk taffeta had the pomp and circumstance we remember from the house founder’s heyday.But Gordon didn’t shirk his own playful verve, either; he’s been growing more confident in that regard. The opening looks included two thigh-baringly short cocktail dresses in black-and-white and a pair of terrific tuxedo reinterpretations, with expressively sleeved shirts and high-waisted, tapered, and cropped pants. Bralettes and shorts were youthful touches that we wouldn’t have seen here in Mrs. H.’s days, but were very much in line with trends on other runways. Sometimes, Gordon and his collaborators tended to over-embellish, be it with oversized beaded earrings and necklaces or with large circular metal belt buckles. A sequined oversize gingham motif read a bit flashy, and the moment for logos seems well behind us.Another gown that lingers in the memory combined bright pink, red, and midnight blue taffeta—a surprisingly pleasing color combination, and one that Carolina Herrera herself might’ve approved of, if memory serves.
9 September 2021
Congratulations to Wes Gordon and his husband Paul Arnhold on the arrival of their first child. Gordon Instagrammed the good news yesterday: It’s a boy! Today, he has another new delivery in the form of his Carolina Herrera resort collection. Not coincidentally, it’s an ode to joy, alive with color, florals, and honest-to-goodness party dresses. “To me,” he said, “it was really about all those things that we’ve been missing: togetherness, laughing, dancing, long dinners with friends, travel, celebrations.”Gordon explained that he’d been dreaming about a weekend house party, one with lunch on the beach, an afternoon spent exploring the town, dinner under the stars, and dancing on the grass until morning. Here and there in the collection were clingy knits and crisp denim and khaki separates, the kinds of things the Herrera client could’ve bought and worn to cheer herself during the pandemic without looking out of touch and overdressed. But by and large this is a more extroverted outing than last year’s resort, and more than twice as big too.The Herrera archives informed the exuberant ruffles that danced down the sleeves of a sequin minidress and up the side seams of the toreador pants Gordon paired with a halter bandeau. A yellow silk faille trench gown evoked Mrs. Herrera herself; it’s a silhouette she might’ve once chosen for a house party. She’d also approve of a blouse-and-ball-skirt combo in two different rose prints, one pink and red, the other an electric blue. Elsewhere, a sequin T-shirt dress lacked the formality and circumstance that are Herrera signatures, but a cropped top and matching skirt in white broderie anglaise was a look that the now gen and the then gen could happily agree on.
9 June 2021
Carolina Herrera the label is turning 40 this year. It was 1981 when the very chic Venezuelan émigré and New York society figure put her first collection of 20 or so looks on the runway at the Metropolitan Club. On the occasion of that show, Mrs. Herrera wore a gingham check tie-neck blouse. Wes Gordon, who took over for the house founder in 2018, said he made a new tie-neck blouse this season in honor of the anniversary.Paradoxically, this outing is Gordon’s most Herrera-like so far and the most his own. That comes down to both his comfort level with her exuberant, glamorous codes and a confidence derived from knowing what works for a new generation of clients.“This is our fourth collection since COVID,” Gordon said on a Zoom call, “and the odds have gotten harder to bring a collection to fruition.” Not that you would know it from the look book, which was shot in the Empire State Building and the new skyscraper at One Vanderbilt, or the video, which was filmed on a double-decker tour bus parked in Times Square. Hearts are the season’s central motif—they appear as prints, intarsias, and embroideries; as heart-shaped buttons and belt buckles; and as sweetheart necklines. Gordon’s giraffe prints and graphic black-and-white polka dots are similarly bold; these are not clothes for fading into the background.In fact, a pair of pouf-shoulder sequin dresses just might earn Gordon the title Our Gentleman of the Sleeve. (After Herrera’s first collection, WWD dubbed her “Our Lady of the Sleeve.” It may or may not have been meant pejoratively at the time, but over the decades it became a term of affection.) Subtler explorations of silhouette here include a ruffled matador jacket and matching high-waist pants that look both classic and contemporary and a lovely strapless portrait-neckline dress in black silk faille with a pleated light pink tulle underskirt peeking out from its hem. That dress will require a special occasion. Will those come back by fall? We should be so lucky.
23 February 2021
Wes Gordon has a place in fashion history. Vice President-elect Kamala Harris chose a white pantsuit from his Carolina Herrera resort 2021 collection for her acceptance speech last month. For 100 years, white has been the color of the women’s suffrage movement; that’s presumably at least partly why Harris chose it. Going forward, it will forever be connected with her ceiling-shattering moment.This collection is more or less pantsuit free; it definitely puts the emphasis on the more playful side of the Herrera aesthetic. That’s because it’s dropping in May and June of next year, at a time when, as Gordon put it hopefully, the “world will be on the path to vaccination.” Comfort and practicality were the major talking points of the spring 2021 collections; the pre-fall season is destined to be dominated by thoughts of reemergence.Gordon channeled that notion with a graphic black-and-white zebra motif, polka dots in all sizes and lively colors, and leg-baring ’60s lengths that are callbacks to Mia Farrow circaRosemary’s Baby, a reference he used last season too. Comfort is still in the picture—he showed everything with flat mary janes or brogues—but joy and exuberance are the big messages here. That came across loud and clear in the three brightly hued ball skirts he lifted from the house founder’s finale show in early 2018. Back then, Mrs. Herrera showed them with her trademark crisp white shirts. Here, they were accompanied by a fitted turtleneck, a T-shirt, and a polka-dot bomber.They’re not inaugural-ball material, really, but who knows? We’ve never had a female vice president before; there are no rules. If Gordon’s in the running to design that history-making dress, he wasn’t saying, but after the acceptance-speech suit, his name will be in the mix. Forty-two days to go.
9 December 2020
Wes Gordon still believes in event clothes. Just back from officiating at his little sister’s wedding in Atlanta—rescheduled from June and with an intimate guest list of 25—the Carolina Herrera designer knows that the pandemic won’t permanently cancel special occasions. “Women are still coming to mark milestones; there’s still a desire for clothes that create unforgettable moments,” he said from his house in Connecticut, where he was self-quarantining. But events do look different now, and the changes are reflected in his spring collection.This was not an abrupt departure for Gordon, who’s about two-and-a-half years into his stint at the label. In fact, he said he’d “doubled-down” on Herrera-isms, like dramatic sleeves, color, polka dots, and prints. It was more so that the attitude of the clothes has shifted. He listed his muses as Mia Farrow, Sade, and Mrs. Herrera herself. Overall, the sensibility was more youthful and casual than usual, while holding onto the grace that is the house founder’s legacy.The models wore brogues and other flat shoes as they strode through the former Williamsburgh Savings Bank where this look book was photographed. That was the first big difference. Another was theRosemary’s Baby–era abbreviated hems. A third were the party pants: high-waisted and cropped above the ankles and worn with those brogues to gamine effect. Among the more formal dresses, a willowy black number whose volume blossomed below the knee was especially striking.Gordon spoke of the satisfaction of getting back into the studio and into the company’s Garment District atelier after having to design, produce, and fit the resort collection that preceded it via computer screen. As he described looks, he named the craftspeople responsible for them. Oksana, the resident tulle whisperer, worked on a sculptural pink tulle party dress; Miro worked on another short number with an asymmetrical bow detail. “All his pieces, you want to dance in them,” Gordon said. “It’s my favorite collection since I’ve been at Herrera,” he added. The pleasure he took in making it shows.
30 September 2020
“I didn’t want to get so caught up in the pragmatism of this moment that we lost the playfulness of the clothes.” Wes Gordon was talking about how he approached his new collection for Carolina Herrera, but he might as well have been summing up the brand philosophy. Herrera has never been a resource for sweatsuits, cashmere or otherwise, and that’s not about to change because of the pandemic.The COVID-19-time concessions Gordon’s made are oriented more toward the way the company does business than the pieces he designs. Resort, for example, is half the size it was in the Before Times, and going forward the brand is organizing pre-collections and runway collections into “super seasons,” the better to “evolve and carry forward the work and create things with longevity.”Apropos of that, Gordon said he likes looking back at the clothes Mrs. Herrera made at the start of her label in the early 1980s. This season he was particularly taken with her flair for sleeves, which tended to the voluminous and sculptural. Gordon incorporated the exuberant shape into new pieces, including a pair of dresses, one short and one long, in a fluid allover silver micro-paillette. The lively paper taffeta bows of a pastel party dress and a black jumpsuit likewise felt true to the Herrera heritage.All that said, Gordon is well aware that this crisis is changing customers’ shopping habits. The brides who might’ve come to the label for a traditional gown are hosting backyard weddings and other informal affairs, and the dresses they’re looking for are similarly more unconventional. In response, he’s recut six cocktail numbers he’s had success with in previous seasons in white. That’s pragmatic and smart.
23 July 2020
Backstage at Carolina Herrera, designer Wes Gordon made a point of noting that today is his second anniversary at the New York label. Mrs. Herrera and her husband were in the audience at the Shed, but this is Gordon’s brand now. He’s continuing to find his way, striking a balance between the elegance and romance the house was formerly known for and a more casual, youthful approach. “My vision for fall is ‘the grand gesture,’” he said. “When I was sketching or draping, I tried to identify the essence of what made the piece special, and then I went all in. It could be a sleeve shape, embroidery, or color, but it’s quite purified.”So a more minimalist Herrera, then? Gordon dismissed the thought. “I think she’s still pretty maximal,” he said, which is true enough. The prints that until now have played a starring role in his collections were reduced to a yellow and black fil coupe and an oversize floral jacquard in orange and blue, but there was plenty of potent color otherwise. When Gordon combined lavish color with exuberant ruffles, the dresses threatened to overpower their wearers, but against the Shed’s white set, a more streamlined long-sleeve dress in ultramarine looked smart. The bright palette also worked for the easier draped numbers with one-shoulder necklines.Gordon applied the grand-gesture concept to embroideries, enlarging a drawing of a rose to supersize proportions on a photocopier and using it as a template for the jet beading on an evening dress with an off-the-shoulder black bodice and a sweeping white skirt. It had the sense of occasion that Mrs. Herrera specialized in and a fresh attitude.
10 February 2020
Wes Gordon was handing out little cartons of eggs at his pre-fall mini show. They were fresh from his farm in Connecticut, where he and his husband spend nearly every weekend. “I was thinking about where I feel happy and relaxed, and it’s on the farm when we’re having picnics with friends, the dogs are running around in the grass…. It’s just idyllic,” he said. “But why do we save those emotions for Saturday and Sunday? I approached this collection thinking about how to carry that feeling with you Monday through Friday too.”His answer was to bring a bit of the country back to Manhattan. “It’s veryGreen Acres,” he joked as the first look came out: a baby blue plaid suit with dropped shoulders, rounded sleeves, and a wide belt. Rather than make the same double-breasted jacket as virtually everyone else, Gordon is experimenting with bringing the draping and volume of his eveningwear into tailoring. “Our client isn’t just looking for things to put on every day—she wants something to have a love affair with,” he explained. Hence his dedication to “happy,” saturated colors and painterly prints, like the canary wisteria on a light-as-air chiffon gown. Some women do want to fall in love with a black blazer, though, and they’ll find a very un-corporate one here: In lieu of a button, Gordon draped a soft, oversized bow right onto the hip.He likes that kind of single, striking flourish, and bows were the thing for pre-fall. A standout black column was finished with a giant ivory bow in the back; a saffron cocktail dress had an asymmetrical bow knotted at the side; and a Tiffany blue gown seemed to explode into a massive bow, with the ribbons falling back into a train. Gordon’s confidence makes all of that fabric and drama feel offhand, but he’s betting on seriously short dresses as well. An up-to-there black mini with a single sleeve (topped with a bow, naturally) is sure to make the rounds at summer weddings next year.
5 December 2019
In a tightly edited collection of 11 dresses, Wes Gordon exhibited the full spectrum of Carolina Herrera Bridal, from minimalist to maximalist. For the bride averse to too much frou, there were slender columns as neat as punctuation marks that crescendoed into sweeping trumpet skirts. The purest of these had the tiniest beads tucked around the V-neck and in between the pleats in the back. The frilliest of dresses was an off-the-shoulder stunner with half-sleeves made of embroidered organza that was cut out into lace.Bridal collections aren’t themed like Ready-to-Wear ones, but Gordon’s focus for this lineup was “statement shapes.” “The Herrera woman is bold, and the bride is no exception,” he said. For the bride thinking big, there was a strapless ivory gown with dramatic oversized floral embroidery scattered throughout and on the matching veil. Freshest of all was a voluminous matelassé confection with draped straps; it combined both ends of the Herrera spectrum in the most direct manner: through texture and shape.
3 October 2019
One look at the front row, where Vanessa Hudgens,Posestar Angel B. Curiel, and Valentina ofRuPaul’s Drag Racewere perched, and you’d say that Wes Gordon is out to remake Carolina Herrera head to toe. In fact, though the guest list looked different than it did when the house founder was still installed, Gordon is faithful to Herrera’s legacy. This season more than in the past, actually.The Herrera aesthetic is one part joie de vivre, another part propriety. In earlier collections, Gordon might’ve leaned harder on the joy. Now that he’s back on the runway for the third time, he’s got a firmer handle on the famous Herrera decorum. That he managed to get this across while also setting a personal agenda—to, as he said, “push myself on cut and construction”—takes confidence and finesse.Gordon set the show in a see-through tent among the Battery’s 195,000 square feet of perennial gardens inspired, he said, by the California super bloom, which was so big this year, it could be seen from space. Fittingly, his first look paired a voluminous white shirt, the icon of the house, with a long skirt in an “exploded” chiné floral print. There were more giant flowers where that came from, on a floor-grazing shirtdress and a short, flirty frock punctuated by a belt. Gordon’s tailoring was similarly exuberant, having ditched the lean blazers of his previous outings for curvier jackets with full sleeves and backs that blousoned above generous bows.The energy dipped somewhat in the middle section of daytime separates in plaids and shirting stripes, but it zoomed back up again with black-and-white polka dots and more super blooms. Best in show was a little wisp of a thing worn by Adut Akech. Bright yellow, strapless, and aswirl to about the mid-thigh, it would indeed be a joy to wear.
9 September 2019
Wes Gordon has been heading up the house of Carolina Herrera for a year now, and he’s officially settled in. By remodeling standards, this one actually feels quite quick. It can be challenging for young designers at heritage labels to know how much of a brand’s “bones” to hold on to. There’s often a temptation to flex—to start fresh.This collection is the success that it is because it’s absolutely true to the brand’s roots, but quite youthful and fresh. Gordon had the clever idea of playing up Herrera’s Venezuelan side. She was born in Caracas, though she’s lived most of her life on New York’s Upper East Side. These clothes straddle that divide. The colors, patterns, and embroideries of Latin America have been applied to the kind of occasion dresses that Herrera’s “uptown” clientele requires.A standout clingy ribbed knit dress was printed in vibrant serape blanket stripes, and a strapless gown has been embellished in the traditional embroideries of Oaxaca. Gordon also took Herrera-isms like pouf sleeves and trench gowns, and spiced them up. To counterpoint all the effusiveness, there was dandified tailoring, which was modeled by his dates to the CFDA Awards earlier this week, the actress Lili Reinhart and the model Sasha Luss. Gordon said the Spanish translation of joie de vivre is alegría de vivir, and this outing had it.Conveniently, the company’s Madison Avenue flagship will open after a 10 month renovation later this year, not long before this zesty collection arrives on the sales floor. It’s going to fly.
6 June 2019
“The longer I work here, the more I’m realizing that my job is just to make beautiful things—and it’s the nicest thing in the world,” Wes Gordon said as he stood in Carolina Herrera’s elegant showroom. This season, it was filled with great bunches of delicate baby’s breath, the perfect accent to Gordon’s “romantic dream” of a collection, which was defined by its lightness.His aim was to shake things up (relatively speaking) by removing all vestiges of stiffness from his dresses. The ethereality of the pieces in this lineup extended beyond aesthetics to the decidedly unstuffy construction of the garments. Rather than hide horsehair, a material typically used for stiffening skirts and creating volume, Gordon used it as a weightless decorative element. Boning was exposed in bodices as fragile as butterfly wings, and some hems were left unfused. “Everyone downstairs in the atelier is the best,the bestat what they do. Now we’re trying to break the rules a little bit,” Gordon explained. “I think the way to make elegance useful is to really lighten it up as much as you can.”Elegance at Herrera is connected to restraint, and this season, the ultimate luxuries were in the hidden details. Upon closer inspection, for example, a tulle confectionery gown revealed a delightful secret: a lace base. Delicately embroidered camellias were veiled under transparent tulle on another model. Spring also saw more covered-up looks due to the requests the house is getting for a Grace Kelly–inspired look (which might suggest that the “naked” wedding dress has run its course). One of the cleaner silhouettes was a collared ivory dress sashed at the waist, which Gordon described as being “as Herrera as a dress possibly could be.” It did conjure the house founder’s signature look—as seen afresh through Gordon’s millennial eyes.
12 April 2019
Wes Gordon is upending expectations at Carolina Herrera. There was once an orderly procession to this label’s runway shows: chic little day suits followed by cocktail dresses, then special-occasion ball gowns. At the New York Historical Society this morning, Look 1 was a floor-length trapeze dress in a sunny yellow and azure blue floral print. Gordon said the reordering was intentional, that he wanted something bold.The billowing dress established the collection’s two dominant characteristics: its vibrant, almost electric palette—“happy colors,” he said—and its roomy volumes. Together, they painted a picture of youthful, unstructured ease. That attitude was accentuated by another of the show’s key silhouettes, a super-mini shift dress with swingy ’60s-ish proportions worn over bare legs. More surprising: an oversize anorak in coral and pink tech fabric that didn’t quite qualify as athleisure, but came close.Gordon has spent a lot of his time on the road this past year, he said, meeting clients in the United States and beyond. “We’re speaking to a broad range of women now, because there’s a casualness to it.” For the longtime Herrera customer acquainted with the founder’s exacting precision—Mrs. Herrera was present today as perfectly coiffed as ever, wearing one of her chic little day suits and heels—there were a pair of lean coats, the black version with artful draping on one lapel. Gordon repeated the motif on slim black trousers with built-in cummerbunds; the pair with the cummerbund in shocking pink was partnered with the Herrera-signature crisp white shirt. The tailoring was fine and reflective of the capabilities of the label’s in-house atelier.On the evening side of things, Gordon should push himself and explore dresses with more shape and structure. Nothing heavy, but at night, a woman often likes to show off her waist. Lineisy Montero’s charming one-shoulder tulle dress in pale pink and orange best exemplified Herrera past and Herrera future.
11 February 2019
“How do you make elegance speak to a new generation? By breaking the myth that elegance has to be uptight.” Wes Gordon took the reins at Carolina Herrera less than a year ago, but he gives quotes like a seasoned pro. His Pre-Fall collection exudes a certain confidence, too. Under his leadership, the Herrera vocabulary is expanding; the signature flamboyance is present, but he’s also making room for a surprising new sense of minimalism.Take, for example, a peacock green silk wool pantsuit. In the past, the jacket might’ve come with three-quarter sleeves, the shape trim and cropped; now, the silhouette is ultra-streamlined, the only curving lines at the slightly accentuated hips. Gordon gave the atelier’s expert tailor, who happens to be a woman, credit for the suit, as well as for a dramatic to-the-floor black tuxedo dress and a shorter tuxedo dress in sapphire with an exuberant bow at the waist and flamingo pink lining. With tailoring trending elsewhere in the market, those were three smart developments.Not all of the innovations came across quite as well. The crystal embroidery decorating cotton shirtdresses seemed a bit unlikely. But that was a small thing, and in general, Gordon’s approach was well considered. On the more flamboyant side of the story, he pointed out a ruffled bustier in that same shade of flamingo pink. It was as effortlessly constructed as possible, where it once would’ve been heavily boned. The evening offering was characterized by a weightless insouciance that felt youthful and modern, from a silver paillette-strewn ivory tulle T-shirt dress to what Gordon described as a “goddess nun” robe in sweeping black and white chiffon.
5 December 2018
“Happy people make happy clothes,” Wes Gordon said backstage. He was talking about the most important lesson he learned from Carolina Herrera in the year and a half that he worked by her side before his runway debut today. This is a changing of the guard that very much has the house founder’s sign-off. Mrs. Herrera was front row with her husband and one of her four daughters at the New-York Historical Society, and Gordon said she texted him beforehand to wish him luck. At 31, Gordon is about half a decade younger than the Herrera label itself. That kind of oversight can be a blessing or a curse for an untested designer, but he insisted it’s absolutely the former. He’s aligned with the color, print, exuberance, and joy that are the Herrera hallmarks.There are distinct points of difference, however, between today’s collection and the swan song he worked on with Mrs. Herrera last season. The most obvious and telling is the trio of miniskirts he paired with the house-essential poplin shirts or Japanese schoolgirl blazers. Clearly, he has his young friends in mind for those; longtime clients may prefer the A-line knee-length styles. Playful evening jumpsuits in silk prints were another surprise; they tapped into the new generation’s insistence on comfort and ease, even for evening.Though Gordon said the young women he knows and dresses don’t really make distinctions between daywear and eveningwear, nearly half of the show was devoted to occasion clothes—and it was the more persuasive half. Especially graceful was a softly constructed, long belted dress in two weightless layers of floral prints. Another pretty number, the long dress in rainbow stripes of re-embroidered lace on tulle, struck a somewhat more provocative note with its peekaboo reveal of skin. Gordon could sweat those details; what’s Herrera—what’s not? Taking over a decades-old label is serious business, to be sure, but Gordon said he keeps Mrs. Herrera’s words in mind whenever he gets stressed in the atelier. “Darling,” she says, “it’s just a dress.”
10 September 2018
Wes Gordon has been working at Carolina Herrera for a year, but Resort is his first collection since the house founder stepped into an ambassadorial role. It’s a changing of the guard moment, conveniently timed during a preseason without the pressure of the runway. That comes in September. By way of introduction at a Resort appointment yesterday, Gordon said, “Not everyone knows this, but Mrs. Herrera is a funny, witty woman who loves a good time. This collection is for kindred spirits.” That’s a smart way to get a transition going, with honor and respect.So, yes, Gordon’s debut was very much in the Herrera spirit—he described it as “anti-normcore”—but there were updates. It is softer; it’s brighter; and as befits the designer and his friends’ own youth, it has a younger, more effervescent sensibility. Gordon, for example, emphasizes cotton over the silk faille and mikados Herrera favored, even for evening. He pulled out a white cotton frock featuring a scrolling red print with an asymmetric bodice to illustrate. Daytime cotton dresses, meanwhile, have had some of the proverbial starch taken out of them, meaning Gordon eliminated shaping darts to let them fall in a natural A-line from the armhole to the hem. These are small, not necessarily sexy-sounding details, but they indicate that he’s made a close study of the Herrera codes.On the more freewheeling side of the new developments was a rainbow-striped mink cape that he paired with a rainbow-striped chiffon gown, horizontal in the first case, vertical in the latter. Gordon observed that the look was just this side of camp; what that says is that he’s not afraid of risks. Elsewhere there was a slew of evening looks that women who go out are going to want to wear, but top among them were a vivid yellow T-shirt gown printed with tiny hearts and stars and boasting an open back, and a lilac tulle strapless style with heart-shaped point d’esprit. More of that playful, almost-camp-but-not sensibility came through in his furs. Both minks and a fox were intarsia’d with hearts. These gave you a “daughters of” vibe, as in longtime Herrera customers might take a pass, but their daughters will be tempted. Not a bad start at all.
7 June 2018
Spring might be a bit stalled IRL, but it was present in all its flowering glory at Carolina Herrera. This was Wes Gordon’s first bridal collection as creative director, and the gowns respected the tradition of the house without stifling his own voice and audience. “I was really thinking about the women I know and my friends,” he said. “What’s very ‘Herrera bridal’ to me is a clean, minimalist gown with something extraordinary added to it, whether it’s a ribbon, embroidery, or a veil.” (Brides-to-be should not miss the trailing headpiece with threadwork of dogwood blossoms scattered at its edges.)“I watchedThe Philadelphia Storyat some point in the past six months,” said Gordon, and it didn’t require much of a leap of the imagination to picture Katharine Hepburn in a white blouse with tied sleeves and a hand-painted skirt overstitched with beaded flowers. Gordon didn’t lean heavily on the movie, however, opting instead to create a wide range of gowns, from a most elegant monastic column with a detachable train to a strapless confection with trimmed bands of lace for women with a Grace Kelly fantasy. There was a cohesion to the offering, as well as connections to the ready-to-wear line. “Herrera is about color, so for us to do two seasons a year where we ignore color seems a little sad,” said the designer, who has noted that brides are increasingly open to playing with a dash of it.Gordon thought beyond the aisle, too, having observed that some brides who come to Herrera for one dress leave with three—for the engagement party, rehearsal dinner, and reception, say—so there were knee-length dresses and a jumpsuit, as well. “For us, it’s about this idea of something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue—and something yellow, and something hand-painted, and something with pearl buttons,” he said. “It’s simultaneously being reverent and irreverent. I think our bride loves the romance of a beautiful wedding and loves the traditions associated with it, but at the same time, she’s inventing her own traditions a little bit and making her own rules. Like Mrs. Herrera, she’s a confident woman.”(edited)
13 April 2018
News broke last week that tonight’s Carolina Herrera show would be her last. She’s stepping into an ambassadorial role at the company she founded in 1980 and making room for creative director Wes Gordon, who has quietly been designing at her side.Herrera’s departure comes during a season of change for New York Fashion Week. Mid-career designers are decamping for Paris, and younger talents are reconsidering the usefulness of expensive, twice-yearly fashion shows in a digital age that requires constant new content. At 79, Herrera is one of the last of the establishment designers to bow out. Among her peers, only Ralph Lauren is still in the game. Calvin Klein was sitting in the front row at the Museum of Modern Art alongside Herrera’s husband and daughters. The changing of the guard chez Herrera is reflective of wider shifts beyond the runway. Tony sportswear and society gowns—the stuff the designer has trafficked in for decades—is not in the ascendant. Gordon will have his work cut out for him making the Herrera codes relevant to a culture dominated by athleisure and streetwear. But let’s hope he tries. We’ve seen enough of tracksuits and logos.Herrera is never not immaculately put together—the picture-perfect representative of her brand in a crisp white shirt and a smart black skirt or trousers. The show started and finished with an homage to that signature style. In between there were other Herrera-isms, if perhaps not as many as one might have expected. Whimsical, wild cat prints filled in for the charming florals she favors. Herrera has always been fond of three-dimensional,tremblantembroideries, and we saw feathers here and beaded fringe, as well. She also loves an awning stripe, and we got one in the form of the show-closing strapless gown. The finale was testament to the power of simplicity: a parade of white button-downs; wide belts; bold, contrast-color taffeta ball skirts (pockets included, naturally); and evening slippers.White jacket–clad members of Herrera’s atelier, who watched the show from the museum’s mezzanine level, joined the designer on the runway for her bow. It was a moving scene. Then Gordon arrived and presented his boss with two dozen (three dozen?) red roses and a kiss on the cheek. A graceful handover if ever there was one.
12 February 2018
“This is a happy house.” Acknowledging the sad state of so many things in the world these days, Carolina Herrera said the only response for her brand was to embrace happiness. Color, print, and embellishment are central to the Herrera ethos, but she approached them with extra gusto this season. The red shade of a trim coat and a long evening dress was redder (for the record, the brand is calling it tangelo), and the fuchsia of soft suede separates was similarly insistent. Even the dark denim pieces, which were otherwise understated, were top stitched in rainbow-hued threads.Herrera said she looked at Flemish floral paintings for inspiration. As such, there was an exuberance of flowers: printed dahlias on a flowing evening dress, showy plastic lilies stitched to the waistband of a princess coat, and charming jewel-like lilies of the valley adorning the pockets of a puff-shouldered black blazer. The flower prints, in particular, had a fresh, youthful quality, more than likely because they appeared on fluid, unstructured chiffon and georgette. The models willowed.The designer herself wore a sensational cast resin winter orchid brooch on her cropped black jacket. It seemed to have inspired the lifelike re-creations she used here. Herrera has always been her own best advertisement, which is why one of the more stately gowns stood out. With its black off-the-shoulder bodice and dramatic white skirt, it was opulent but serene—made in her image.
6 December 2017
Trends, as Carolina Herrera observed in her showroom today, don’t and should not drive the bridal market. A wedding is a single, momentous, and ceremonial occasion that demands something out of the ordinary. “I think the old-fashioned in bridal is very important,” says designer, who has dressed some very famous brides indeed. She knows from experience that brides who start out talking about “cool” or “edgy” wedding attire often change their tune after trying on a romantic gown—the designer’s trademark.Chez Herrera, invention flourishes within the boundaries of tradition and ceremony. Floral touches appeared throughout the Fall 2018 collection, which included both white-on-white embellishments and more colorful ones. A light-as-butterfly-wings dress featured emerald-and-white embroidery in a pattern that might have been inspired by an 18th-century men’s waistcoat; more directional was an embroidered gown that was yoked to emphasize a handspan waist. If there was something a little bit country about that blush-color number, a strapless guipure lace gown with a removable high-necked capelet was the height of simple sophistication. Apart from one dress with a multitiered tulle skirt, which borrowed its silhouette from the designer’s Spring 2018 prêt-à-porter line, the rest of the collection was clean-lined.While she appreciates the fantasy element of bridal planning and designing, Mrs. Herrera doesn’t neglect the practical. A bow-tied wrap dress, for example, had pockets. Pretty sleeves, a house specialty, added feminine flutter to another dress, whose look changed entirely with the addition of a wide “something blue” belt. “It’s about poetry, it’s about love,” Herrera said, and she really meant it. The designer prefaced her show notes with lines selected from Lord Byron’s poem “She Walks in Beauty.” And lyrical is, in fact, just the right word to describe her latest dream dresses.
7 October 2017
It was nice to see a Carolina Herrera collection infused with so much polychrome that one couldn’t help but feel . . . well, upbeat. In a moment where many are suffering—be it by nature, politics, the times as they are—every little bit of optimistic output helps. And the feeling went especially deep considering that today is one of the saddest days in New York City’s history. It was almost as if Herrera was suggesting: Beextrahappy about the things to be happy about; minimize the weight of the heavy world and enjoy, even if in tiny beams, the instances that do count as a reason to smile.That might sound paradoxical—harping on the ebullient when woe abounds elsewhere—but it resonated. Herrera’s show opened with a gingham series, which held true to what the designer said backstage: “I did big shoulders, tiny waists, and a lot of movement in the skirt.” The second look was a puffed-arm version, essentially, of Herrera’s trademark white blouse, albeit knotted tight around the middle with a pale green, checked midi-length skirt shifting below. The runway progressed with a total run of the CMYK spectrum (extending to multi-tonal shoes made in partnership with Manolo Blahnik). At times there were veer-offs that didn’t quite gel (intermittent ’80s vibes might have been too full-on), and it was at her simplest and most saturated that Herrera was most convincing. A light denim calf-length dress with hand-painted rainbow buttons was utterly daytime chic, as was a chiffon one-shouldered dress with ruffling at the diagonal neckline and a terrazzo floor print (which reminded this writer longingly of the surfaces at his grandfather’s mid-century Florida home). A clean-lined dress with a fitted top and a looser body, banded in hues of what can only be described as an oceanic sunset, made many an Instagram story. The clean and the colorful; such is the prism through which Herrera shone.Of further note: Herrera’s show this evening was staged at the Museum of Modern Art, the first time the institution has allowed a fashion presentation, perhaps thawing in advance of its upcoming fashion exhibition, titled “Items: Is Fashion Modern?” which opens in early October. However, Herrera made it clear that she does not create a garment based on inspiration from an artwork: “I won’t do a dress based by a painting. Only the color,” she said. Fair enough. And finally, it should be said that there was a more youthful verve apparent, too, which comes by default with the vivid territory.
“I have a lot of young customers. A lot of them. I have young daughters and I know what they want,” said Herrera. But she didn’t totally abandon her peer group and her long-term clients, either: “Sometimes, though, they want to wear what their mothers or grandmothers wore.”
11 September 2017
Optimism and prettiness have long numbered among Carolina Herrera’s signatures, but she’s done a particularly good job evoking them with her new Resort collection—at a time when we (fashion, America, the world) have never needed them more. Herrera said she looked to the gardens at her home in her native Venezuela for her flower motifs, and the exuberant colors she pulled from them for other pieces. What was noteworthy about her palette this season was its mix-and-match freedom. A breezily terrific gown in pink and blue striped technical taffeta was finished with a cherry red sash belt, and she combined unexpected hues just as nimbly elsewhere.That newfound playfulness carried over into some of Herrera’s silhouettes. Buoyant floor-length skirts in mimosa floral prints were paired with snug ribbed-knit tanks for a fresh, youthful look. A black and white stripe fit-and-flare dress made from a technical knit had a similarly vivacious spirit in a more all-ages shape. Flowers and color played a smaller role in the more casual part of Herrera’s Resort story. In this category, the standout material was a lightweight striped denim that she cut into an A-line skirt, a sleeveless tunic worn belted (as many of the looks for day and night were here), and skinny flares. Best of all was the sleeveless dress with contrast stitching, white buttons, and deep pockets.
7 June 2017
Carolina Herrera presented her Spring bridal collection in a salon dotted with wooden garden benches and scented with garlands and large urns filled with truly ginormous white hydrangeas. All this was to evoke the mood of a verdant country wedding, the season’s theme. “For me,” explained the designer, “the most important day in the life of a woman is her wedding, and it has to be romantic, it has to be feminine, it has to be ethereal, it has to be dreamy—it doesn’t have to be sexy.”Herrera’s designs exude seduction subtly, as in a pleated wisp of a gown with lace underlay, a not-so-simple bias-cut slip, or a sleeveless gown with a shirt front and collar. Though hardly informal, Herrera’s dresses this season, in keeping with the theme, had a sense of ease—and pockets! The most elaborate number was a strapless gown with bands of delicately hand-embroidered hydrangea-like petals. “We have to keep the girls happy!” said a smiling Herrera after the enfilade.Mixed among the dreamy gowns were several bridal ensembles; two were blouse and pant combinations. “I strongly believe in separates for weddings,” Herrera said, “that, for me, is the modern way of dressing the bride.” She called out one of our favorite looks: a tulle skirt paired with a formfitting sequined sweater. The opposite of a dress-to-impress confection, this ensemble is for a bride confident in her taste and with nothing to prove. A true Herrera bride, in other words.
22 April 2017
“It’s a very uncomplicated silhouette,” said Carolina Herrera, giving her model board one last look before her Fall show. “To me, the less complicated, the more modern. Sometimes, when things are too complicated, they belong in the circus!”Herrera’s rarefied magic, therein, is that even when she’s going for the streamlined, there’s still a crisp polish apparent—and a specialness in its takeaway. With this season, she sought to update her aesthetic creeds. Take, for instance, the opening series of looks based on her de facto uniform keystone—the white blouse. The tops came with sashes, velvet ribbon accents, or tiny cotton pearls embroidered in silvery lines down sleeves that were enhanced with just the right amount of volume. A few evoked prairie or gaucho hints (this particular cue was echoed elsewhere, with a regal woolen cape). A dress shirt is one thing; in Herrera’s hands, it’s something pretty wonderful.There was an uptown-casual through-line in evening, as well. One dress, bodied with pale pink crepe, featured a rose gold sequined front—it almost mimicked a tight, long-sleeved tee. A trio of bows across the shoulders, also in velvet, added a counterweight of classicism. Bella Hadid’s sequined tea gown, too, retained a notable easiness, while little bell sleeves and a somewhat deep-V neckline gave it a youngish slouch. The closing dress—a lo-fi but high-impact navy velvet, open-back gown with chiffon knotted at the neck—held up the designer’s sound-off: “With this collection, I want to show the essence of the house of Herrera.” Mission accomplished, Mrs. Herrera.
13 February 2017
The iconic portrait paintings of Tamara de Lempicka were the jumping-off point for Carolina Herrera’s Pre-Fall collection. It’s rare for Herrera to cite a reference; she’d rather talk about modernity, relevance, the future. This year, for example, marks her 35th in business, but it’s a milestone she celebrated not on her runway, but by publishing a Rizzoli book. The point is that the Lempicka references were subtle. A strapless dress in a chartreuse dévoré velvet captured the spotlit quality of the Polish artist’s canvases, and the supercharged teal of a satin tie-neck blouse and floor-length evening skirt looked lifted from Lempicka’sSelf-Portrait in the Green Bugatti.Lempicka, whose most productive years were the 10 or so before and after the crash of 1929, was a rare female star in a field that was still essentially a man’s game. Perhaps that’s why Herrera’s first look was a mannish pantsuit paired with fingerless gauntlets and patent oxfords, but then again, perhaps not. Herrera is naturally forward-looking, and having noticed that tailoring had more or less gone missing from contemporary fashion, she made a point of resurrecting it for Pre-Fall. She isn’t the only designer thinking along these lines this season, but her pantsuit looked particularly convincing. Ditto a maxi coat in bordeaux windowpane check, the nipped and natty elegance of which made a leather coat with a built-in Art Deco fur capelet look slightly anachronistic. Even when she cut a fit-and-flare day dress, she did so in a menswear plaid. All in all, a smart Herrera collection.
5 December 2016
For her latest bridal offering,Carolina Herrerawanted to return to the beauty, elegance, and grandeur of her very first dress, created 35 years ago. With just seven dresses presented for Fall (Spring ’17 brought twice as many), the highlight here was a dress taking its cue from Herrera’s denim dress that opened her spring runway collection, but this time in layers of silk faille, resulting in a frothy, cascading frock. A structured counterpoint to the ball skirt was this season’s corset motif, featuring exposed boning. A similar technique was employed in a less grand—but equally majestic—high-neck, long-sleeved alençon lace dress, whose bustier-like bodice was covered in artfully placed florals. Illusion dressing was another effect employed by Herrera, most notably in one of her more minimal moments: a strapless silk mikado trumpet stunner with cut-outs just below the bust and at the sides—hinting that the posh princess bride may have a party side after all.
10 October 2016
This year marksCarolina Herrera’s35th anniversary in business, and her Spring collection, shown this morning in the peaceful (perfect for a Monday) Frick Collection on the leafier edge of Manhattan’s Upper East Side, was a smart and metered mix of the then and now. The designer took cues and highlights from her experience and refreshed them for “the women of today.”The most covetable things in Herrera’s repertoire were her evening gowns. The fact that they were now imbued with a deeply personal memory or flashback made them all the more special. “I used to wear a gingham blouse all the time,” said Herrera. “I wore one at my first show. So I thought I’d update it for now.” She applied that thinking to a lovely shoulderless dress, wrapped at the bust, in a graphic black-and-white scheme. She also revealed a series of fantastic striped black-and-white gowns that crackled with nighttime sophistication—even though it was only 10:00 a.m. “There’s a picture inVoguefrom years ago in which Serena and Venus Williams are in the original versions of these dresses,” said Herrera. (She then displayed the photo, from her new anniversary book.)It was in the lineup’s lightness that Herrera went for the contemporary. Metallic brocades were paper thin and crinkly; denim dresses were washed to a medium-grade indigo. These items looked quite easygoing, despite their volume. The designer also suggested knits (a crop top had an intarsia35on the sleeve), floor-grazing tulle skirts, and one knockout off-white lace gown with a halter neck over a little chiffon polo shirt. She and her team accessorized it with a vintage talon collar from Belperron (archival Belperron pieces appeared throughout). As rooted as the show was in the past, it still felt very current. Concluded the designer: “I’d like for this collection to be . . . effortless. Notice all the flat shoes!”
12 September 2016
Carolina Herrerais celebrating her 35th anniversary in business this year; in December she’s set to receive the Women’s Leadership Award at Lincoln Center’s Corporate Fund gala. She has never been a designer much interested in the past. Just last season she said, “I want to see women looking beautiful, but in an actual way . . . I’m very pro new technology.” But her new Resort collection does feel like a return to classic Herrera. Or maybe a better way to look at it is classic American sportswear. Not to say this appeared retro—that’s definitely something that Herrera isn’t interested in—but rather that it was refined down to its essence. In recent seasons chez Herrera you’d occasionally encounter unusual embroideries, often with a futuristic feel. At their worst, the resulting clothes could feel fussy and quite contrary to Herrera’s personal dressing code, which is strict.Here, Herrera simplified, very much for the better. There were thick, rugby-esque stripes on evening numbers; denim was dressed up and cut into a sheath dress; and evening separates were whipped up in glossy black sequins. Silhouette-wise, she embraced peplums and very generously cut high-waisted, wide-leg pants. Herrera’s got a new back-room team. The Swarovski Award for Emerging Talent–nominated Laura Kim and Fernando Garcia of Monse signed on earlier this year. We’d say everyone is off to a strong start. Lincoln Center will be a very pretty place when Herrera’s nearest and dearest turn up in Resort’s frothy tulle evening looks to honor the designer.
20 June 2016
Counting fans fromMad Men’sChristina Hendricksto fashion plateOlivia Palermo,Carolina Herrera’s bridal designs are at once both classic and feminine. In the designer’s latest collection, 15 looks took their cues from old-world silhouettes with some modern touches. This translated through numbers including a lace column dress (achieving new heights of drama through a detachable skirt overlay) and a silk crepe pantsuit, whose blouse featured a pearl-studded collar. For the more traditional bride, Herrera also showed slick takes on conventional styles, including a scoop-neck dress featuring organza trim in lieu of lace or tulle for a more fluid and ethereal finish. The highlight of the collection was a reinterpretation of Mrs. Herrera’s signature white blouse as a trench dress, featuring pintucking and a slit that would make evenAngelina Jolie Pittblush.
19 April 2016
Carolina Herrerawas back at the Frick today. The jewel-box museum, once the home of gilded-age industrialist Henry Clay Frick, was much in the news last year when preservationists worked to scuttle expansion plans that would have destroyed its oasis of a garden. As historic a setting as the Frick is, Herrera herself is determinedly forward-looking. She said as much backstage. “I want to see women looking beautiful, but in an actual way, not in the past. I’m very pro new technology. We should go to the future.”True to her word, Herrera experimented with 3-D embroideries like leather florets and smaller paillettes that floated a few centimeters off the surface of dresses thanks to long bugle beads that connected embellishment to cloth. Herrera hoped they would enhance the sense of fluidity she was going for, and that they mostly did. They’ll be a talking point on dance floors at next season’s galas, though how you sit in them at dinner hour is something she and her team will have to consider before they go into production. In keeping with that feeling of experimentation, Herrera took a modern view of event dressing, pairing a black sweater that sparkled like the night sky with an ethereal mint green tiered gazar midi skirt.The highlights among her gowns—a body-skimming column with a keyhole neckline and, in back, a beaded racerback strap, and Karlie Kloss’s plunge-front goddess dress—were streamlined and stripped down. Best in show was Maria Borges’s halter-neck number in the most sensational shade of iris with blossoming floral embroidery.
15 February 2016
Carolina Herrerais not a fan of seasonal themes; she’s never found them necessary. Asked to share a few words about Pre-Fall, she said, “It’s about tailoring for day, and very glamorous evenings. That’s what we need, so that’s what this collection is about.” A basic principle, certainly, but it didn’t result in basic clothes. Herrera’s skirtsuit this season came in ivory with black jasmine blooms. Pinstripes, meanwhile, got a feminine touch courtesy of a peplum jacket complete with raw edges. And we all know how much she loves a bold sleeve. Her white shirts were as dramatic as ever, inset with handmade lace or blossoming south of the elbow into grand bells.As for evening, it was as glamorous as she promised, with feathers on a little cocktail frock and jet beads decorating the bandeau back of a ball gown, but the news was in her after-dark separates. A woman could wear Herrera’s lace-trimmed neoprene sweatshirt paired with a narrow, floor-length skirt to all manner of galas but retain a welcome sense of ease. The collection’s indisputable knockout was a high-neck, long-sleeved, floor-length dress in a delicate jasmine print that looked utterly demure until you saw the back, which was bare. It would be an unusual choice for aGolden Globenominee, but that shouldn’t stop one of them from wearing it next month.
11 December 2015
TheCarolina Herrerabride is fashion-forward yet intrinsically elegant, and for Fall the designer married these ideas with a light hand. This translated into reworking traditional notions of sexy through sheer detailing on bodices (creating a painted-on effect), lace appliqué around necklines, and even a crop top. However, the unifying element of the 12-look collection was a new take on transparency. A boned, corset-topped, floor-length stunner elevated the recent runway penchant for bedroom dressing, while blush and white tulle were layered on a skirt and veil, evoking colors used by the Impressionist masters.
9 October 2015
Color, prints, a well-placed flourish. All of the Carolina Herrera signatures were present in her typically lovely new Resort collection. Feathers replaced the waves and ripples of her Fall show as the season's dominant motif. They shared the scene with florals and turned up in all sorts of ways: as a delicate painted print on a long chiffon dress, as an appliqué on a tea-length skirt, or splashed boldly across the skirt of a ball gown. Only real feathers were missing from the story; Herrera tended to prefer sequins, beads, and the occasional laser-cut plastic embroidery to authentic plumes here. But most of all, she focused on print, which kept the overall feeling light.The Herrera silhouettes are as tried-and-true as the details. She shrugged off a flattering off-the-shoulder fishtail dress as commercial. "We do them in every color for sales," she said. What did get her excited were the more adventurous shapes: A cropped organza T-shirt looked modern and fresh with that tea-length skirt, and the culottes she cut in jacquard patterns tapped into the current trends. The designer included some fur separates because the clothes deliver in late fall, and more and more, she thinks, women are shopping with a buy now/wear now mentality. A coral-colored curly lamb skirtsuit, she said, "is the perfect outfit for November." Or a rainy day in early June.
3 June 2015
Founder: Carolina HerreraYear established: 1981Known for: Extravagant gowns with sometimes-playful detailsFamous brides: Christina Hendricks, Jessica Simpson
20 April 2015
"I don't do years," Carolina Herrera said before her show, explaining that she doesn't like looking to the past for inspiration these days. "I'm trying to go to the future." The designer, who turned 76 last month, becomes less conventional as time accumulates. She had fun last season with flowers, which she treated in artful, unexpected ways, and so she's sticking with the natural world for Fall. Her idea was to explore water, and her approach was both literal and abstract.As a rule, the more loosely she treated the theme, the more successful she was. By day that meant a Prince of Wales dress with a wave of needle-punched mohair drifting across its front was a more convincing option than a cashmere jacket featuring embroidered swans. Strip away the swoosh of red acrylic embroidery on a softly constructed coat and what would've remained was a divinely soft mohair fabric in a subtle houndstooth and chevron pattern. By night, the ripple-print silk organzas and jacquards Herrera used on cocktail dresses and gowns erred similarly on the emphatic side. A long, wool felt dress in ivory with curving seams tracing across the chest was subtler and more elegant for it. And the same held true for a strapless gown in icy blue silk gazar with undulating flounces below the knee. The most forward-leaning look, an ivory techno jersey top accompanied by a long blue bias-cut skirt with a single ruffle rippling down the side, wasn't really about embellishments at all. The modernity was in the efficiency and glamour of its cut.
16 February 2015
Carolina Herrera's new Pre-Fall collection juggles whimsy and dignified elegance. She has been in the biz long enough to be a master of both. On the whimsical side there were ladybugs, and lots of them, crawling around the collar of a swingy A-line dress and printed in miniature on a breezy summer gown. For the woman who prefers flora to fauna, Herrera had a lovely rose print on a navy blue background; all of the prints are designed in-house. At the other, more compelling, end of the spectrum, she was working with double-face cashmere in neutral shades of ivory and camel, as well as a bolder combo of charcoal and pool blue. Clients will get a lot of mileage out of a three-piece suit that had echoes of mid-century couture. Versatility was essential to her evening numbers, too. A long, narrow teal skirt that looked torn from an old Irving Penn photograph was paired with a black silk top inset with jet cabochons, but it could've just as easily been worn with one of Herrera's crisp, white button-downs.
5 December 2014
Nothing is so sublime or so cliché as a flower. Carolina Herrera took flowers as her starting point for Spring, as she's no doubt done countless times before. This go-round was different. Where once she might've been content to create something merely pretty, here she seemed eager to push the boundaries, sample new fabrics, embellish with unexpected materials, and marry the natural world with technology. It was eveningwear as conversation piece.The square and rectangle embroideries stitched on a ball skirt, for example, were made from thin pieces of foam. That alone was unusual, surprising. But Herrera took it a step further by painting those pieces with the details of a pink rose, then piecing them together like a tile mosaic. The resulting bloom looked remarkably three-dimensional when the dress glided down the runway, and the same held true for other dresses with other treatments. Some flower prints were superimposed with boxes of gradient color like James Turrell's work and, just as with Turrell, it felt as though you could almost step into them. They'll be popular on the museum circuit next season. Large grayscale roses on black jacquard also had depth.We're happy to see Herrera experimenting. But for the customer who prefers to play it safe, she had other options: pretty dresses in pretty colors—the best among them a sunshine yellow strapless gown with just a touch of artful draping at the waist.
8 September 2014
"Uncomplicated clothes" is Carolina Herrera's simple message for Resort. At Chez Herrera, however, uncomplicated and simple doesn't mean dull. If her silhouettes remain straightforward, there is a good deal of sophistication in the fabrics she gravitates toward, as you expect from this label. Herrera has always loved flowers. This season she's taken up humble daisies, but there's nothing humble about what her atelier has done with them in the case of an evening gown boasting a multilayer skirt. Only the underlayer was embroidered with the flower's stalks, adding to its visual interest and giving it a nice sense of movement. A V-neck evening dress with elbow-length sleeves printed in tiny white and yellow buds is destined for a more casual affair, but it was no less charming. Of course there were hardworking sheaths and shirtdresses for days—this is Herrera's biggest collection of the year, after all. But she didn't save the charm for after dark. Lace print shorts and a fine-gauge knit embellished with swags of beads lining the neckline will find plenty of admirers.
3 June 2014
"A whimsical play on proportions," Carolina Herrera promised before her show. The designer was thinking along rounder lines than usual. Karlie Kloss' black boiled-wool coat enveloped her like a cocoon; it was as elliptical as her pony-hair pencil skirt was straight. After that opening salvo, jacket shoulders sloped softly into bracelet-length sleeves and swung away from the back in generous volumes. With its deep sable hem, a fiery red wool gazar style in a silhouette ever so slightly evocative of Cristobal Balenciaga looked striking, as did another in bordeaux double-face wool with navy blue alligator appliqués.In a way, you could argue that geometry was the collection's dominant refrain. In addition to those memorable rounded jackets (not to mention the somewhat regrettable fez-shaped hats), there were graphic patterns by the yard: triangles, diamonds, and parallelograms, all hand-painted, embroidered, or printed. They worked best when the cut of the garment was super-streamlined and the fabrics were straightforward, as was the case with a sleek cap-sleeve silk cady gown. Other times, the prints got in the way of textural fabrics, and when Herrera added fur trim into the mix, well, it just became too much. An ivory silk double-face gown provided an object lesson in simplifying. Adorned with nothing more than a deep mahogany velvet belt, it was the most pared-down, least eccentric thing on the runway, and far and away the loveliest.
9 February 2014
Carolina Herrera is an avid gardener. It's a pursuit that's given her a healthy appreciation for bees, and she used her Pre-Fall collection to pay tribute. "I connected it to the wholelifeof a bee," she corrected at its debut, at a fizzy little cocktail hour that, in more temperate conditions, could have been a garden party. As promised, everywhere you looked, something was abuzz. Little bees were embroidered onto structured dresses and printed onto polite shifts. The honeycombs they make were blown up into micro and macro print versions, and the flowers they pollinate—florals being an evergreen at Herrera—embellished day dresses and evening gowns alike.There were new silhouettes for the season, key among them a longer-waisted skirt, fitted then flared, paired with a shorter jacket. Lengths hovered primly around the knee. But the overall message was more about honeyed sweetness than pushing new propositions. More so than in her occasionally labored runway collections, Herrera's inter-season outings, this one included, do justice to her enviably unruffled sense of lightness and well-polished whimsy. "Fashionshouldbe fun and effortless," she opined. Her bees ensured that it all was. They're also noted for their industry, not unlike the lady of the house. (Asked how she possibly had time for gardening, she replied, "Everyone should have time for everything. If you have discipline…") But of course, she does have help. "The beehive is very important in my office," she added. "I always have people buzzing around." Which would make her the queen.
9 December 2013
The Carolina Herrera woman has always been a classy, cosmopolitan character. Backstage after her show, the designer said that her Spring femme was active and international, stopping in France one day and South America the next. This spirit shone through in some of the collection's more youthful, sporty wares, like an embellished black dress with meshlike tulle detailing and a boxy, ivory suede frock with strict-but-subtle sheer insets.Spring '14, however, was decidedly evening-centric in comparison to recent Herrera outings. While there were about a dozen fluid gowns sent down the catwalk this morning, the designer offered only a handful of trousers and focused more on ladylike cocktail frocks and swooshing floor-length dresses than daytime separates. Perhaps this had something to do with her inspiration. While dreaming up her Spring prints and silhouettes, Herrera referenced kinetic art, specifically the work of Venezuelan artists Carlos Cruz-Diez and Jesús Rafael Soto. She translated the movement's graphic lines into geo-prints, which appeared in chocolate, citrus, and plum on skirts and gowns as well as on their organza overlays. As they swished down the catwalk, Herrera's layered lines produced mesmerizing optical illusions. "When you layer the fabrics like this, it becomes an entire visualexperience," she said. No doubt, it would be tricky to achieve the same effect with classic suiting or separates.That's not to say Herrera's loyal customers won't have before-dark options for Spring. A series of viscose-blend day dresses were soft, energetic, and easy. And a glamorous black and white bikini covered with wafting organza (and topped with a very Audrey-esque sun hat) seemed to cater to Herrera's newer devotees, such as Christina Ricci, Michelle Dockery, and Christina Hendricks, who sat in the front row. Only, it would've been nice to see more attention paid to the chic sportswear that's been so integral to the Herrera brand.
8 September 2013
Carolina Herrera is just back from Singapore, tropical mecca, shopper's paradise, and orchid capital of the world, where she opened a new store and was reminded that seasonless-ness is the new normal for fashion. So it stood to reason that her new Resort collection wasn't filled with beach cover-ups and safari gear—though her customer can certainly afford to travel. Rather, it was chockablock with the cocktail frocks that are her best sellers. That they all played on a floral motif? That may have been a coincidence.Either way, "this collection is all about prints," Herrera opined at her newly refurbished studio. (She has newfound access to the terrace encircling the space, so she shot her lookbook there, among the thematically appropriate topiary.) The flower theme was picked apart every which way, and the looks ran the gamut from literal to abstract. The floral-stripe jacquards were impressive if a bit tricky. A more straightforward flower print on cream silk was closer to the designer's comfort zone. (And the palazzo pants that were one of her major statements for Resort gave her ample surface area on which to plant it.) Then there were more painterly versions: one abstract in the collection's colors of carnation pink and poppy red; another Pop Art-inspired, blown up to supersize, and layered on blocks of solid color.Ethereal as it may have been—"I like everything floaty," Herrera proclaimed, as a pair of trailing skirts in handkerchief organza sailed by—business as usual was enlivened by odd moments of newness. One finale gown was embroidered with bits of rubber, the same sort you'd find on sneaker soles. Float like a butterfly, stomp like a Chuck.
3 June 2013
The New York calendar this fashion week is as full as it's ever been, and editors from here and away have been complaining more than ever before that the city has no barrier to entry. Unlike in Paris or Milan, anyone with a few bucks and a dream can find their way onto the official schedule. From the opposite side of the spectrum comes Carolina Herrera. Even with a heavy rain shower, she filled the Lincoln Center theater venue; and for the occasion, not content to merely hire an expensive music director, she commissioned her own "Capriccio for Carolina." Let the little guys fuss over pop hits and designer DJs. Herrera required the full symphonic talents of the London Contemporary Orchestra."This collection has great drama and emotion!" was her comment. To put it mildly. Herrera's collections don't often dovetail with the reigning trends of the season but they're fully realized enough to create their own realities. That was the case here, and more strongly than in seasons past. The designer imagined a heroine of the 1940s: With her victory-roll coif and her wasp-waisted dresses and full skirts, she was a kind of vixenish moll. Herrera didn't stint on fur, which was one of the collection's major statements, whether wrapping around a bodice (a bit much of a muchness) or trimming felt belts that emphasized those tiny waists. So tiny, in fact, you wondered how the collection might scale up to the size of regular women in place of the slivers on the runway today. But Herrera's clothes were classy enough, and possessed of enough guff, that even the most teenaged of the runway belles looked to be of stauncher stuff just for the wearing. There's nothing entry-level about that. Once again, Herrera showed the new guard how it's done. If the whole was a bit beholden to its historical reference, the collection nevertheless made its point. So strongly, in fact, that you left wondering aloud: Who knew Zuzanna Bijoch could do such a passable Katharine Hepburn?
10 February 2013
Many husbands promise the sun and the moon, but it almost seems within Reinaldo Herrera's grasp to give them to his wife. At the very least, he offered Carolina a placeholder: a gilded compact inlaid with jewels, the sun on one side, the crescent moon on the other. She used it as inspiration for her pre-fall collection, which looked to the heavens for celestial prints, inky dusk blues, and embroidered whorls of jacquard that put you in mind of van Gogh'sStarry Night. "I'm very superstitious," Mrs. Herrera warned, and so a scarf, wrapped around a model's neck, unscrolled to reveal the astrological constellations, with CAROLINA HERRERA picked out in stars next to Capricorn, her sign. From there, it was a jump to the tarot deck, which made one of the season's novelty prints, and then to a playing card print for pussy bow blouses. Those came with a pair of eye-popping houndstooth suits in lipstick red with shrunken, peak-lapeled jackets and wide-legged pants—Redford inThe Stingsent through the looking glass and back. "There and back" could've been the tagline for this pretty, loosely structured collection. "From the heavens to the earth" is how Herrera preferred to put it. After the starry gowns, with their diaphanous layers of chiffon and crystal brooches, there were showstoppers very much of the earth, in jacquards of garden rose.
9 December 2012
Fleetwood Mac's "Sisters of the Moon" was on the soundtrack, which should've been the first sign that something gauzier than usual was afoot at Carolina Herrera. "I wanted to work with a new proportion this season," the designer explained, "something incredibly light and soft." She was after fluidity and had an arsenal of chiffon, organza, tulle, and georgette in her toolkit.The results were mixed. In her more comfortable evening zone, she was very much at home. It wouldn't be a Herrera show without column gowns, and there were beauties on display, in pleated silk chiffon andfils coupe. They were mature in the best sense. Where Herrera stretched herself with more youthful proposals, she stumbled. See the busy prints or high-waisted flounce shorts. Simplicity suited her better. Karlie Kloss' show-closing dress, easy and airy and prettily embroidered, suggested a road worth exploring further.
9 September 2012
Coming off an unusually dark Fall collection sent Carolina Herrera into a multicolored, frothy Resort. Resort dressing, she said in a salon-style presentation today, is about color, femininity, and fun. "You must find some element of fun in every piece," she opined, "or the element of Resort is lost entirely."That giddiness was clear in her prints, like the illustrated, half-abstracted cartoon of paramours mid-clinch that she called The Lovers. It was there in another printed dress, which had rabbits scampering over a cloudy-colored skirt. ("Rabbits are always lovers," she deadpanned.) She mixed materials from top to bottom of looks—like a peplum-accented cotton skirt with a silk twill shirt, both in lover print—and a cocktail dress in both the positive and negative versions of a double-faced polka-dot jacquard. There were simpler cotton color-blocked sheaths and crystal-embroidered eveningwear, too, lest any longtime fans be left out of the fun.But the best part of this range was the license it gave Herrera to play around. Lace frocks stayed on the racks. The versions she showed had lace print on gazar instead, or a lace-mimicking jacquard. "There'll always be lace," she said, "but it can be a little tired. This is a bit younger, no?" Yes. Not a new idea, but a nice development nonetheless for the Herrera atelier—which, by the way, has been expanded and now occupies its own, full floor. "They're in heaven," she reported. It takes fun to make fun.
11 June 2012
New York senator Kirsten Gillibrand occupied the exact spot today where Nicki Minaj sat a season ago. That says something about fashion's range but also about Carolina Herrera, whose red-carpet dresses are a longtime favorite of Renée Zellweger but have also recently found favor with none other than her Royal Gaga-ness.Certainly, there was range on today's runway. Herrera began in an uncharacteristically dark rhapsody of navy and black day looks, before achieving liftoff into serious ball skirts. Herrera said she had reality on her mind. Sure, that word is relative, but for those who share Herrera's rarefied universe, she offered a form of functional luxury. It meant the casual cool of a soft, robelike coat made to wear over a gown. It meant the speedy glamour (for the elegant but time-starved) of a broadtail and knit sweatshirt over a silver beaded pencil skirt. Add the little wedge booties worn with every look, and things get speedier still.But one of Herrera's biggest ideas for Fall inched toward the other end of the spectrum: a cropped—almost chopped, really—top or jacket that was meant to create an elongated silhouette. The shape did its work with lean pencil skirts and gowns, though it couldn't save a hefty woolen ball skirt—an idea that probably seems genius only for the few hours that you shiver through a gala on a wintry night. Another idea that worked better in theory was the pop collage print made for Herrera by English print designer Joe Duke, which, if you looked closely, included her daughter Carolina Jr.'s lovely visage. Even range has its limits.
12 February 2012
"It's a continuation of Spring," Carolina Herrera said of her pre-fall collection. "I think we have to change the name."With no-nonsense practicality, Herrera showed a collection that ranged from warm-weather dresses (for May, when the line hits stores) to tweedy, fur-sleeved coats for cooler temperatures. The twisting and draping motifs from her Spring show reappeared, but the autumnal palette of reds, browns, wheats, and cobalt blue was pure Fall.Hererra knows her loyal customers look to her for smart dresses, coats, and tailored pieces, and she didn't disappoint. But she's lately started rubbing shoulders with a younger clientele, too. Nicki Minaj sat front-row at her Spring show; she designed a gown for Bella Swan's twilit wedding; and you might have seen a version of one silk faille evening piece here on none other than Lady Gaga. (Gaga and Herrera, two names you'd never before think to link in a sentence.) Maybe they've inspired her to amp up the drama, with bow-bedecked gowns, or lighten the mood with puppy prints. (Their inspiration: her miniature poodle, Gaspar.)Still, the finest pieces were often the simplest, like a Deco-ish shift whose pattern appeared to be print but was actually a fine layering of tulle and lace. Whoever else she may be channeling, Herrera has long been her own best influence. She showed a trompe l'oeil one-piece look of lace-inset white top and billowing organza skirt—an evening-ready nod to her own famous uniform.
4 December 2011
Nicki Minaj made for an incongruous sighting at Carolina Herrera today, particularly sitting between two important editors in chief. But even beyond the rapper's unexpected, Muppet-like presence, there was a freshness to the proceedings at hand. That started with the spring-y colors, the yellows and greens that made you think of tulip leaves, and then a sweet but not saccharine little sparrow print. When the latter was cut into a cap-sleeve dress worn with sunglasses, a natty matching scarf, and a cherry red belt, it looked ready to hop on the back of a Vespa and tool around Rome. There were lots more options here with that kind of pared-back and easy feel. But even when she's sporty, the Herrera dame needs luxury. Cue the piped canvas trench in a gold-tinged khaki.As a counterpoint to the organic, Herrera went geometric. The idea popped nicely in a trio of black and white dresses, and of course when the motif read Art Deco in bugle-beaded evening looks, it was a perfect fit. That wasn't the case with random, constructivist-style trims on skirts and dresses, however.When it comes to evening, Herrera's ambitions can sometimes get the better of her, and there were a couple instances of that here. Trying to marry canary yellow jacquard silk with dotted chiffon and big panels of embroidery is just a case of attempting too much at one time. But mostly, the gala gowns had the simple elegance of one of Mrs. Herrera's white shirts, particularly a beaded tank worn over a fluttery chiffon—not quite Vespa-ready, but close.
11 September 2011
Resort found Carolina Herrera—that epitome of decorum—in an uncommonly fizzy mood. Her Spring collection is now in stores, the one with flowers "taped" (trompe l'oeil, of course) to clothes like botanical slides. It made sense to see her extend her floral reach with a painterly, semi-abstract print on straight sheath dresses and grosgrain-trimmed capris. But from there, the prints got even more graphic. Who could have foreseen the day when this doyenne of designers would send out mushroom-printed frocks? To follow: a parade of bubbles, ranging on the size spectrum from Champagne to soap. Herrera famously prefers her own cotton shirts stark and white, but she showed new ones here with oversize bubble dot motifs (shown, in case the point gets missed, with solid-color bubble-shaped skirts). As for evening, a tonal column gown with gathered bustle seemed likelier to find an Upper East Side audience than a go-for-broke, stripes-meets-dots version in black and white. But the designer did identify a distinct advantage of the ultra-graphic route. When faced with flashbulbs, she said, her conversation pieces do what bubbles do: They pop.
5 June 2011
Even to those mired neck-deep in fashion, it's amusing when a designer talks about clothes for "real women" as the new idea behind a collection. But that invocation was a welcome one today from Carolina Herrera, who can occasionally allow her source material to get the best of her clothes. Explained the designer before the show, "Sometimes you get carried away and are inspired by the moon or the stars or a book that you're reading."Though her buzzwords were "streamlined" and "straightforward," reality is relative, and the needs of Herrera's clientele still rate pretty high on the scale. But that combination yielded some lush simplicity, as sportif elements were played off of or merged with jeweled silks, beading, and fur. Herrera's sense of drama bubbled under, literally at times, as panels of beading half-hidden in a neckline or scooped back. Simple wool shifts sometimes came with winglike pleats, or a fur trim on a funnel collar. She allowed herself the grandness of high, capelet collars on otherwise clean-lined dresses and coats, and the wide-cuffed gauntlet gloves worn throughout probably helped her make peace with the extreme plain-Jane-ness of a black turtleneck tucked into a flannel skirt. The trick, of course, is to keep your feet on the ground and nod to the stars—no one wants everyday from Herrera either. One standout that struck the perfect balance was a beautiful chocolate organdy coat with flaring pleats and zero embellishment.It's only logical that Herrera's self-imposed directive would be harder to maintain for evening. Amid the sleek column gowns were a few head-scratching moments, like a jutting triple-lapel detail on one gown and the overwrought, layered sleeves on a pair of others. It's hard to predict which of the designer's dresses we might see on the red carpet in less than two weeks, but at any rate, that's one reality that even the doyennes of Park Avenue can only experience in front of a TV—and they're the audience whom Herrera mostly sought to address today.
13 February 2011
"Who wants to come out in brights [for pre-fall]?"Carolina Herreraasked at an informal presentation in her showroom today. "I saw it had to be subtle." Simple, simple, simple, she repeated as she walked editors through racks of dresses, pants, knits, and blouses in French gray and pewter blue, with just a shot or two of poppy red and gold.But simple doesn't mean dull, and this collection found Herrera in top form. Accordion-pleated sheaths in duchesse satin, silk organza, and wool jacquard were quintessentially CH: refined, restrained, and effortlessly lovely. A shooting-star motif (inspired by Herrera's own Luz Camino pin) and animal prints recurred throughout, though even leopard was softened and abstracted in the designer's hands. A box-knit jacket with removable fox collar, shown with matching gray wool trousers, was day done right—not that you would mind wearing it once the sun set. Herrera mentioned that she'd done more daywear for this collection than ever before. "How many ball gowns can you have?" she wondered aloud. That's not a question we ever expected to hear from this designer, and never fear, she threw in a few beauties: a watercolor print inspired by a pheasant's feathers, and, to close, a showstopping chantecaille lace gown in black and gold, a sleeker, slimmed-down version of the pearl gray and blush one from Resort.
6 December 2010
Carolina Herrera's program notes explained that Spring was inspired by two things: the traditional clothes of Korea and botanical plates collected in the eighteenth century. For anybody who admired the elegant simplicity of her recent Resort show, that little bit of news sent up a red flag. The tall, wide-brimmed straw hats (customarily worn by men in Korea) and the superfluous obilike bows that decorated the bust- and waistlines of evening dresses hardly dispelled the disquiet, nor did floral prints complete with calligraphy detailing the plant's name and origins. Happily, there was also a lot here of a more subtle nature. The more restrained gowns suggested that Herrera can still teach a thing or two to the up-and-comers gunning for the Park Avenue set. In particular, a lotus-blossom-embroidered blouse and olive to-the-floor skirt and a forest green metallicfil coupécolumn dress with a slightly asymmetrical neckline nailed the understated grandeur that's long been a Herrera signature. If it's grandeur plain and simple a girl is after, she should look no further than the finale gown with its yard-upon-yard of porcelain-embroidered floral jacquard.
12 September 2010
"This is a very light collection," Carolina Herrera said as the first models strode out at an informal presentation in her Seventh Avenue showroom today. "Feminine and romantic." This designer has probably put those words together many times before, but the clothes did have an appealingly unfussy quality that has sometimes gone missing from Herrera's runway shows. Her explanation: This isn't about fantasy or pretty pictures, it's about real life.The woman whose real life calls for a ball gown has plenty to choose from here: A blossom pink textured organza strapless dress was an understated, modern knockout, and if it's drama the wearer's after, a gray Chantilly lace floor-scraper should fit the bill. Knee-length cocktail numbers were hardly an afterthought, though. Among the variations Herrera showed, a strapless dress in a watercolor print she called "her Monet" was particularly lovely. As for suits, it isn't necessarily easy to romance houndstooth, but she managed to do it by softly draping the jacket's lapels and marrying it to cuffed trousers and matching Manolo Blahnik pumps. All in all, a terrific Herrera outing.
6 June 2010
In her last couple of outings, Carolina Herrera has explored the arty side of her oeuvre, getting baroque with her fabric combinations or heavily embellishing them. That's been to the detriment of her refined, elegant message and, no doubt, to the quiet despair of the ladies who love it. So it was a positive development that she came back to the ultra-luxe side of things for Fall, and for the most part, employed a lighter, more familiar hand. The designer limited herself to brushstroke prints and floral embroideries, while letting silhouette, bold colors like Prussian blue and deep red, and sable fur (plenty of it) do the talking.Delivering on her "Lady of the Sleeves" reputation, Herrera puffed up the volume on the arms of day dresses and off-the-shoulder evening versions alike. There was a fullness, too, to high-waisted, fluid trousers that were paired with grand white blouses or statement-making jackets and coats—the former in, say, crocodile with matching wool sleeves, and the latter in camel double-faced cashmere and sable. The teenage models inevitably strained to pull off these looks as confidently as the rather older target customer eventually will. After all, these ladylike clothes require the kind of bank balance and sophisticated good taste it takes a few years to attain.The evening dresses will be no less pricey, but they're likely to find a wider audience. Ranging from an understated strapless black faille column to an embroidered tulle confection with a pouf below the knees, they look destined for heavy rotation on the social circuit. A silk moiré number with a chic organza bolero, in particular, will have Herrera's gals fighting for first dibs. The disconnect between day and night was a bit jarring, but the collection nonetheless felt more like familiar Herrera territory than her recent efforts, and was the better for it.
14 February 2010
"I wanted everything light as a feather," Carolina Herrera said about pre-fall. Where better to look for inspiration than the tango? The designer used a colorful 1920's print of dancers locked arm in arm for both a crepe de chine cocktail dress and a floor-length shirt gown, and its bold hues—lava red, dandelion yellow, and Directoire blue—informed the rest of a cheerful collection that played to the designer's strengths. Herrera's tweed separates are so airy you can practically see through them, though her lineup was mostly dresses: above-the-knee blouson shifts and fitted sheaths, some with embroidered brooches, for day; and, for after eight, a moiré draped one-shoulder column and a floral-print jacquard dot fils coupe number sure to see a lot of action on the gala circuit. The pièce de résistance was a strapless multi-stripe gown with long train made from a single piece of draped duchesse satin. It wasn't necessarily made for dancing, but it would make an unforgettable entrance.
6 December 2009
Aside from a bit of front-row intrigue—news of company president Mario Grauso's departure from Carolina Herrera was in this morning's paper, and there he was sitting with his wife, Anne—the mood was positively decorous at today's show. But isn't it always? Herrera's program notes explained that the collection's starting point was the intricate forms woven in Japanese baskets. A rarefied inspiration, to be sure, and one that meant there was plenty of surface interest to take in on the clothes, from an intriguing vest-jacket woven in gray linen jacquard to a strapless white dress embroidered with tiny wooden tiles.Counterbalancing the clearly luxe materials was a surprising push into silhouettes that were, if not quite downtown, then certainly younger looking: Thigh-baring shorts accompanied jackets for a new (to Herrera, at least) take on the summer suit. Fresh evening separates, like an ivory satin toile long-sleeve blouse and matching long skirt shared the runway with gowns and column dresses. And, yes, there was even a jumpsuit—it was belted and strapless, with cropped full legs, and came in a deep brick-red gazar.But for all of the laudable experimentation with new shapes, there was a clunkiness to some of Herrera's other, more familiar looks. The rope-weave jacquard of a tea-length dress sagged in the bodice and added volume to the hips, and a rose chiffon gown with a bugle-beaded top didn't have the signature polish of the collection's winner, a bronze one-shoulder gown with parallel lines of gold embroidery tracing the outline of its model's body. That number walked the line between youth and sophistication.
13 September 2009
In good times or bad, glamour sells, and Carolina Herrera is a designer intimately familiar with that concept. Name-checking Man Ray in her program notes, she kept her Resort silhouette long and lean, with an accent on belted waists. In the narrow confines of her showroom, her models looked like visiting sylphs from some idealized version of the 1930's. Sheaths came in shocking orange or subdued pearl gray, and each of them fit like a glove. Skirtsuits with cropped and snug jackets and elongated pencil skirts were her other suggestion for day, but here she strayed too far into period territory. Not so with her evening gowns, which will be making the rounds on the party circuit come the holidays. A vibrant orange chiffon number with a draped, asymmetrical neckline will be especially popular with the ladies.
2 June 2009
Carolina Herrera believes in pretty. The world as we know it is crumbling around us, but you wouldn't think so looking at her lovely collection—and there's a certain strength in maintaining that sense of poise under pressure. If she acknowledged the recession at all, she did so by forsaking the elaborate embroideries she usually favors. In their place were rich, textured fabrics, be it the metallic gazar of a blouse and corset, the glinting lace of a high-waisted skirt, or the forest-green striped cloque of a corset gown and matching scarf. Herrera has always had an eye for special materials, and for Fall there was an almost three-dimensional two-tone jacquard—lapis blue with gray, or cassis with caviar. She used it to great, graphic effect, accentuating the curves of the waist on a long-sleeved day dress, a narrow pantsuit, and a swagged one-shoulder gown alike.Despite a concentration on grand eveningwear, the collection didn't feel stuffy. A double-faced crepe jacket was tossed over a fils coupe long dress in the same shade of blue, while a substantial copper waist-cincher finished off the asymmetrical bodice of a gown with one bracelet sleeve and the other strap languidly slipping from the model's bare shoulder. Herrera may have used copper—not gold—in this case, but at this house it's still a gilded existence.
15 February 2009
You couldn't exactly call it sober, but there was a reining in of sorts at Carolina Herrera for pre-fall. A strict silhouette predominated: Narrow, below-the-knee skirts were paired with bow-front blouses and cropped jackets, and pencil-slim sheaths came in creamy ivory for day and a gold-on-black pinstripe for evening. What kept the mood upbeat were Herrera's strong colors—green, turquoise, and royal blue—and a bold, saturated floral print. The most recession-proof look in the bunch, however, did come in black and white: an irresistible strapless lace gown topped by a timeless tailored jacket.
7 December 2008
Let other designers batten down the hatches against the flagging economy. Carolina Herrera's customers have recession-proof portfolios, and if they don't, they're not going to let it show by dressing in any old thing. The show's color palette was of the "If you've got it, flaunt it" variety: bright persimmon paired with hibiscus, teal faille trimmed in tweed, a marigold photo print. Black and white also played starring roles. Compared to her recent collections, embellishments had been scaled back; Spring is all about the ruffle. As for the silhouettes, though, they were designed for cocktail hour and beyond (with a few exceptions for lunch at La Grenouille).Herrera has always loved a skirtsuit, but this season short Watteau-back jackets in duchesse satin came with pants cut cigarette-slim and cropped several inches above the ankle—the effect was vaguely toreador. She showed enough dresses for a season's worth of dinners, art openings, and galas. There were pretty party frocks in mille-feuille chiffon that had the unstructured ease of silk lingerie. The "important" gowns came in corseted silk cloque or lacquered black raffia (don't even think of sitting down in that one). A beaded, liquid jersey column in white with a black gabardine jacket slung over the shoulders was the winner of the bunch, though, not only because it captured a certain effortlessness, but also because, yes, it looked wallet-friendly: The blazer could do double duty with a T-shirt and jeans.
7 September 2008
Carolina Herrera's airy Resort collection was further proof of how deserving the designer is of the Geoffrey Beene Lifetime Achievement Award that she received from the CFDA last night. A lightness of touch was evident throughout, whether in an orchid-print sheath or a ruffled tank worn with a full-legged, liquid pant. Herrera's stunning evening gowns—some quietly embellished, others elegantly one-shouldered—were subtly fine-tuned for resort to guarantee unimpeachably chic yet breezy entrances.
2 June 2008
The drawing rooms of the Upper East Side that inspired Herrera's Spring show have been replaced by the wide-open spaces of the countryside. But don't think the designer has skimped on the luxury or the embellishments. Trading in painterly florals for a bird print embroidered with marabou feathers, and polka dots for windowpane plaids, she focused primarily on separates: dramatic capes over matching jackets and long, slim pants; cashmere vests layered over printed chiffon blouses and riding pants. A robust tweed overlaid with multicolored organza turned up on a double-breasted vest and a long coat with an exuberantly patterned lining. And there were riding jackets, as her program notes explained, "to grab from the mudroom, over a crinkle chiffon gown for an elegant dinner on the farm." Driving home the rustic-chic message were slouchy, high-heel riding boots and tartan fedoras decked with extravagantly long feathers that bobbed in the runway breeze.Minus the over-the-top accessories and without the omnipresent feathers—all that fresh air can apparently go to a girl's head—most of the pieces could play in the city. Velvet jeans might easily become a staple in Herrera's crowd. A long chartreuse chiffon dress with an asymmetric neckline and a floral jacquard vest worn over a corseted china-blue gown trailing several feet of gazar in its wake are both obviously destined for the Park Avenue party circuit. And wouldn't it be a shame to waste those gorgeous furs (from a cashmere hoodie with patches of mink right on up to the conspicuously grand swakara swing coat) on Sagaponack or Deer Isle, where there's hardly anyone to see you?
3 February 2008
Carolina Herrera has had it with flowers—at least for pre-fall. The designer was in the mood for a change, she said. So she replaced Spring's floral prints and vibrant colors with feathers (both real and embroidered) and a moodier palette of blacks, grays, and eggplant. The collection was full of "mixable" pieces, like long cardigans that can be worn open over full skirts or trousers, and jewel-embellished cropped jackets that would work with something new or an old favorite. For evening, Herrera delivered what her urbane customer craves: understated glamour, in the form of an Edwardian equestrienne-inspired ensemble (white blouse, black floor-sweeping skirt), a portrait-ready lace gown, and a purple-is-the-new-black dress paired with an ostrich feather bolero.
6 December 2007
Carolina Herrera said she was inspired by the watercolors of Jeremiah Goodman, the interiors illustrator to the smart set, whose book,Jeremiah: A Romantic Vision, was published earlier this year. Diana Vreeland, Elsa Peretti, and Pauline de Rothschild were his clients, so you can imagine how lavish Herrera's fabrics were today. And she wasn't content to leave her floral silk failles be; she'd decorated them with artful swaths of jet beads.She set the refreshing new mood—last season, by contrast, she'd cited Edvard Munch—with the first look: a flower-embroidered white top with billowy black cocktail shorts. Moving on, there were shirtwaist dresses and cocktail styles topped with sporty cardigans; a new perspective on the suit with those shorts again; and one solitary pair of pants, shown with a vibrant floral silk tunic.But Herrera's heart was in her eveningwear. An overlush gown or two could've benefited from a paring back, but there were stunners aplenty. A pool blue and green polka-dot silk chiffon dress stood out for its simplicity, a corseted gazar number with a ruffle at the knee for its grandeur. But a cream crinkle chiffon top and black dévoré ball skirt with a coral belt best captured the show's lighthearted yet still soigné look.
9 September 2007
With fresh greenery at the back of a narrow runway, and springtime at the Jardins du Luxembourg for inspiration, Carolina Herrera sent out a resort collection of pretty, real clothes—the kind that will keep the social set in cocktail frocks and gowns all party season long. First out was a tongue-in-chic garden chair-print dress with a bow-front bodice. A black chiffon number with a draped, capelike back was another standout—both knee- and ankle-length frocks were paired with flat sandals for a welcome sense of ease. But there was plenty of drama in an orchid-and-black floralfils coupeorganza gown with embroidered straps that evoked the Paris garden's scroll-like wrought-iron gates—her clients will be clamoring to wear it first.When Herrera and her design director, Hervé Pierre, whom she brought out for a bow, did turn their attention to daywear, they didn't abandon the little details and witty embellishments that have become a house signature. A column of red glass buttons decorated a white cotton chair-print top, for instance, and a white patent-leather string belt decorated the waistband of a black polka-dot shirtwaist dress. But most charming of all were the violet-print faille trenchcoat and matching tote.
10 June 2007
Somber will never be this designer¿s style—or that of her Park Avenue clients. And yet, there was almost a brooding or even mysterious quality to Herrera's Fall collection. Side-by-side with chic little skirtsuits and covetable furs (among them a must-have three-quarter-sleeve tunic), she showed a cropped jacket in broadtail with a sly, standup collar, a muskrat trench with felted-wool trim and belt, and long, languorous skirts with graceful trains. With dark menswear plaids and jacquards juxtaposed against the artistic detailing that has lately become a Herrera signature, the effect was altogether different from her confectionary-sweet spring outing.The designer upped the luxury ante for evening. There was a couturelike finish to the gathered tulle that overlaid a painted georgette column; a dress appliquéd all over with squares of graduated taffeta was an impressive technical feat. Such extraordinary attention to detail sometimes got the better of Herrera, though. Embroidered broadtail, micropleats (at a shirt collar and running down the front of a skirt), and crystal-studded tights could quickly become too much of a good thing. But there were moments of lovely simplicity, too. Take, for instance, a black maxi coat worn with an organza blouse and wide-leg pants. Amid all that visual stimuli, it almost got lost, but solo it¿s a guaranteed hit.
4 February 2007
For spring, Carolina Herrera jettisoned the fifties inspirations that threatened to weigh down her fall collection. With a front row lined with both new and longtime members of the best-dressed list, she seemed to be thinking,Why look anywhere else for ideas?Realism was the order of the day, served with a smattering of couturelike touches and Verdura jewelry. Her trench was cut in black-and-white lace and accented with rosettes. A slim wool sheath—the very essence of urbane simplicity—came with subtle pleating details. And this time, the references to the past were handled gently. A toile sundress was printed with the likeness of Marilyn Monroe, but if you weren't looking closely, you might have missed it.That fabric appeared later in the show, underneath a veil of heavily beaded chiffon. If some of the evening dresses were a little busy and overdone compared to her lighter resort offerings, there were at least two that had her gals circling their program notes: One was the finale, a net cocktail number with ribbon embroidery that was right in line with the fun, short dresses seen on many spring runways; the other was a slim matelassé gown with a ribbon sash dividing a rose tank and a deeper red narrow skirt. It was polished, but also effortless—a combination the designer pulled off with a fair degree of consistency in this collection.
10 September 2006
This time of year, designers have the red carpet in mind. And who can blame them, with all the attention the media lavishes on awards season? But Carolina Herrera knows there are many other occasions that aren't simulcast to millions worldwide, yet still call for the sort of polished, important clothes in which she specializes—take weddings, black-tie galas, or simply dinner at 8. Judging by the happy post-show murmurings of her front-row clients, there will be plenty of jeweled silk faille boleros and sheared-mink turtlenecks at Daniel come fall.Herrera took her inspiration from such late-1950's icons as Claudia Cardinale inThe Pink Pantherand Jeanne Moreau inLes Liaisons Dangereuses. But whatever the back story, there was a modern ease to these clothes. A black-and-chocolate sheath came with whimsical sheered-mink sleeves, while skirtsuits, shown in red double-face wool, plaid, and a Prince of Wales check, had a softness that belied their inner structure. Crystal-studded cocktail dresses can look straight out of the vintage shop, but Herrera invigorated hers with unfussy, sexy cuts. Opaque tights lent an element of youth to a chiffon gown, whose hip-high slit might elsewhere have bordered on bad taste, but here looked fresh.Similarly, only someone with Herrera's deft touch could pull off the bold patterns and daring color combinations that ran through the collection. It takes a savvy confidence to pair a violet corset boasting chocolate ribbon detailing with a red floral floor-length skirt. This season, Herrera is dining out on it.
5 February 2006
Carolina Herrera's program notes promised a trip to early twentieth-century Vienna, but there was nothing archaic about her pretty new collection. Forgoing the skirtsuits that have made her a favorite of the ladies' lunch set, she teamed leg-elongating trousers with tiny knit sweaters over trim button-downs, and a ribbon-waisted pencil-slim skirt with a short-sleeve blouse in a naïf radish print. It all looked very fresh, but perhaps not as youthful as one might've expected, given that the paparazzi's favorite junior Park Avenue target, Lauren Davis, is ensconced in the designer's public relations department.[When the spring social season kicks off, Davis and her crowd will be snapped in Herrera's shapely, floor-grazing skirts, fitted to the knee and flaring out in a cascade of ruffles. These appeared in silk gazar and embroidered cotton. If the designer's most recent collection was stripped of embellishments, her new lineup made up for lost time and had them in abundance. More Arts and Crafts than high glam, hand-painted floral appliqués, raffia belts over chiffon gowns, and exquisite embroidery that gave one thyme cotton column the look of brocade were all clever flourishes. It's too bad these confections weren't shown with a younger shoe, perhaps a flat. But devoted fans of her evening dresses won't be dissuaded by such a minor detail and can go elsewhere for that.
11 September 2005
When a show works, there's always one outfit that serves to underscore what makes the whole thing so right. That moment came at Carolina Herrera's fall 2005 collection with a look described in the program notes as a mahogany moiré strapless gown with fluted skirt. Stripped of any unnecessary embellishment, this exquisitely constructed evening dress was the perfect distillation of everything for which Herrera stands: old-world (but most definitely not old-fashioned) charm and elegance that have been glossily brought bang up to date.Herrera also focused on what to wear during the day, imbuing those clothes with a 1940's feel without making them look retro. Most effective were what she called her trumpet skirts (fitted across the hips before flaring out sassily over the knees) and a slew of tweed hunting suits—in particular, one that came in a yellow windowpane check. Body-conscious and streamlined, yet without sacrificing any prettiness, this is what constitutes modern power dressing. Despite the richness of Herrera's fabrics—and "richness" is the word, what with a lavish lynx fur, a charcoal broadtail dress, and a beautiful, raspberry abstract-print silk used for a cocktail dress and a sweeping ball skirt—the final effect was chic, but never flashy.
6 February 2005
All it takes is one of Carolina Herrera's effervescent dresses fluttering down the runway, and suddenly, you're on the Riviera, with an icy cold drink, beneath blue skies. Spring is Herrera's season, and this year, her signature blend of sensuousness and sophistication seemed particularly lighthearted—inspired, perhaps, by her daughter Carolina Jr.'s lavish, romantic June wedding to the dashingly handsome Spanish bullfighter Miguel Baez? Regardless of the source, the benefits are available to all.In addition to those floaty frocks—made from silk crepe or jersey, and cut to skim the body like a breeze—Herrera included plenty of sportswear to satisfy even the office-bound, like a tweed shift in nubbly red or camp shirts to wear with trim skirts. Always a fan of unexpected color combinations, Herrera (who designs with her daughter Patricia Lansing and design director Hervé Pierre Braillard) used deep hues of crimson, aqua, chocolate, and green against ivory and black. Herrera delights in details: A lovely lace dress was finished up the back with delightfully old-fashioned tiny pearl buttons, and chunky, gleaming jewels adorned straps and belts. This season, Herrera's all about sharing the love—and we're feeling it.
8 September 2004
Like the jaunty theme song fromThe Triplets of Bellevillethat looped through the soundtrack, Carolina Herrera’s fall show had infectious charm to spare. With her design team boosted by creative director Hervé Pierre and her daughter Patricia Lansing, Herrera’s designs have taken a turn for the lighter—always refined and feminine, but with a new sense of color and craft.The inspiration for this collection was Europe’s grand ski resorts, but don’t look to Herrera for performance fabrics. This was old-school luxury at its best: buttery cashmere and alpaca, bulky knits and soft leathers in warm wintry colors (brown, deep blue, wine, and black), lavishly embellished with sable, mink, ermine, and fox. She kept it fresh with trim, flirty cuts, like knee-length skirts that flared just below the hips, and such intriguing details as roughed-up edges, cascades of square-edge ruffles, and fabrics stamped with patches of gold leaf.Herrera amped things up for evening, creating a series of showstoppers. She dropped a gold fox-fur stole around the neck of a jade-green silk dress; stitched ripped bits of blue chiffon to a gorgeous chocolate gown; crocheted cream-colored cashmere into a ball skirt; and scattered bugle beads across an alpine sweater. The slopes have never looked so inviting.
8 February 2004
It may have been gray and muggy outside, but inside the Bryant Park tents at Carolina Herrera’s spring show it was all blue skies and lavender-scented Mediterranean breezes. Inspired by the languid, light-soaked Riviera photos taken by Jacques-Henri Lartigue at the turn of the last century, Herrera sent out a dreamy, pretty collection with full-spectrum appeal.There’s a new team in the Herrera office, since earlier this year the designer named her daughter Patricia Lansing as designer and Herve Pierre Braillard (ex-Bill Blass and Vera Wang) as design director. Herrera’s trademark elegance is still the guiding force, but there are other influences as well, offering a lighter, sexier feeling with occasional sporty accents. One key piece was the racer-back tank; it opened the show in sheer ivory cashmere, went through a series of embellishments, and ended up black, beaded, and paired with a floaty ivory georgette skirt.The palette was limited but not dull: Ivory and black were set off by pale pink, a rosy brick, and shots of lemon yellow, plus a few meandering abstract prints. Fluttery chiffon and slinky jersey dresses were often topped by crocodile link belts or trimmed with wide striped ribbon, while smart, slim day suits got a dash of contrast topstitching. Even without Biarritz on your itinerary, this collection will guarantee you a place in the sun.
14 September 2003
In an era when sex appeal seems mostly to be about big displays of flash and flesh, Carolina Herrera sent out a coolly appealing collection that made a case for subtly seductive elegance.Satin is one of the season’s most important fabrics, and Herrera’s were some of the most beautiful so far—mouth-watering, fluid blouses and skirts in richly pigmented blues, burgundy, gray and creamy white. She paired those pieces with slim pencil skirts and tailored trousers and topped some with buttery, light Persian lamb coats and jackets or swingy sables. Elegantly tailored suits and coats never got too serious, thanks to a body-hugging cut and soft colors like dove gray or toffee.The Herrera woman has a packed social schedule, of course, which calls for a few evening looks. If she's feeling flirty, she'll grab one of the designer’s bouncy ball skirts edged in feathers. Would-be sirens, meanwhile, will find that her slinky, body-skimming gowns flatter both their assets and their intelligence.
9 February 2003
In a testament to Carolina Herrera’s finely tuned sense of balance, her spring show contained equal measures of youthful nerve and sophisticated maturity.Though Herrera's clothes never scream "trendy," she knows how to drop in an up-to-the-minute reference to keep things fresh. With workwear all the rage, she added subtle details like D-rings and tab pockets and showed a slim-cut safari jacket atop a fluttery paisley chiffon skirt. Charmeuse is turning up on a lot of runways; Herrera used it sparingly but to good effect in long, cool dresses of vivid green and aquatic blue. Her butter-soft pink leather suit, with its knee-length skirt and patch pockets piped in brown, was luxuriously proper without being hard-edged. Elsewhere, the designer added romantic volume to her curve-hugging jersey dresses with a classic poet's sleeve, cut on an angle. And she gave that standard voluminous ball skirt a frisky new attitude simply by sitting it on the model's hips and pairing it with a crisp, sheer organza top.
17 September 2002
For Fall 2002, Carolina Herrera did what jazz musicians do all the time: Take a standard and breathe new life into it. In her own riff on a series of classics, Herrera turned out a luxurious, perfectly balanced show that could easily have been titled "Lush Life."Herrera's concise collection, shown to a small audience in her showroom, was built around menswear fabrics and tailoring, reworked to very feminine proportions and in a restrained palette of black, ivory, gold and gray. Crisply tailored, wide-leg pants showed up either as part of a suit—the jackets with a hint of built-up shoulder, the button-front vests worn as a top—or with sexy, silky shirts. There were glimpses of well-bred glitz throughout. A restrained gold-lamé fabric, for instance, was made day-wearable in a narrow coat or the aforementioned trousers, while some of the jackets got a whirl of gold beading on the shoulders. Plush leopard-stenciled lamb showed up in a simple belted coat, and as a jacket over a satin skirt.For evening, Herrera sent out a series of slinky black dresses, each set off by one eye-catching detail: a flash of red lining, a cascade of ruffles or a deep plunge neckline.
10 February 2002
Carolina Herrera is in a lighthearted mood, focusing on soft silhouettes embellished with romantic details.The white shirt was the central theme of her collection; it came laced up, tucked into generous skirts, delicately embroidered and worn as a camisole over pajama pants. For contrast, there were coffee-and-emerald check pants and skirts, stone poplin suits and a great silk crepe dress with a pleated flapper fringe and nude back. Herrera also showed a few leather shirts and wrap skirts, but these felt a bit cumbersome and stiff at times.Evening was a smorgasbord of pleats. Old-school gowns and grand sweeping skirts in pearl-gray organza stole all the thunder from the charmeuse tank gowns, which offered a familiar spin on the current lingerie-dressing craze.
9 September 2001
"It's a very sleek and svelte collection," announced Carolina Herrera backstage, as her audience poured into the tents at Bryant Park. "My emphasis is on creating clothes that are perfect for right now—simplicity works best for me."With fashion winding down from over-the-top excesses of seasons past, Herrera emphasized a slim, unfettered silhouette punctuated by luxurious details like lace embroideries on shirts, asymmetric hemlines on georgette skirts and diamant¿ buckles on tuxedo jackets and dresses. Whimsical pieces included a black leather spinal-pleat wrap jacket, a belted Russian lynx coat and several sleeveless chinchilla sweaters.Herrera's evening segment referenced last season's love affair with the early '80s: There were feathered tops, formfitting lace skirts and several off-the-shoulder stretch satin dresses aimed at the younger Park Avenue set.
11 February 2001
It was a lighter, breezier and younger-than-usual collection for Carolina Herrera, who stayed true to her love for polished, delicate clothes but managed to infuse her looks with a lively and vibrant spirit.For Herrera, Spring is all about showing off bronzed legs and nipped waists. Her flip skirts are sassy and full of movement, chopped right at the knee, in coral and tobacco geometric prints; dresses are cinched with thin leather belts or disco-inspired gold chain link. Sensible summer alternatives include one-step-dressing shirtdresses and rompers, slightly bloused and always belted. For more adventurous types, there are teeny shorts, off-the-shoulder suede blouses and even a skimpy sunflower leather strapless dress.Evening consisted of long skirts and gowns with embroidered cuffs, waistbands and collars, as well as generously cut pleated trousers. But it was the day looks, simply styled and perfect for a confident woman, that worked best.
17 September 2000
It was back to basic chic for Carolina Herrera, who focused on her traditional, well-known feminine and no-nonsense silhouette. Her collection revolved around suits—formfitting stretch wool and bouclé jackets were paired with flared or lean skirts and skinny, tailored pants. Black prevailed for both day and evening. Leather skirts and coats looked striking and modern when paired with sand georgette tops, and simple crepe gowns made a splash with shocks of pink and scarlet. There was also a lush chevron-striped mink jacket, and richly embroidered dresses and separates that exuded Herrera's unmistakable touch of classic sophistication.
6 February 2000
Carolina Herrera took a playful turn for spring 2000, displaying a youthful, modern feeling that was balanced by her trademark ladylike sophistication. Never one to take fashion over the top, Herrera featured plenty of luscious colors, including beaded pink and chartreuse camisoles and dresses, rich Moroccan embroideries, and buttery-soft suede trousers. The evening looks brought to mind a daring debutante: citron silk crepe backless halter gowns, full taffeta skirts, and ruffled shirts paired with floor-length A-line skirts. "The mood for 2000 is feminine, luxurious and seductive," explained Herrera. "We need a lot of color and energy."
12 September 1999