Wes Gordon celebrates 45 years of Carolina Herrera with a joyful New York collection

The number of yellow tulips installed in the David H. Koch Theater’s Promenade for the Carolina Herrera brand’s 45th anniversary show? Precisely 28,798, creative director Wes Gordon announced. “Because Henry and Georgia,” his young children with his husband Paul Arnhold, “each took one when they came to rehearsal.”

Gordon wasn’t even a twinkle in his parents’ eyes when Herrera launched her label in 1981, but she handed him the keys eight years ago. Subsequently, the label has become one of American fashion’s few success stories, dressing mothers and daughters and sometimes granddaughters.

fashion

Inside CHROMISM: How the BAM Collective turned a Johannesburg forest into fashion's most immersive runway yet

The collection was a joyous tribute to Herrera’s design signatures, from the black-and-white polka dots at the start to the diaphanous black gown with the ruffled neckline—“very Nan Kempner,” Gordon called it—at the end. Her classic crisp white shirt was tucked into a cummerbund over cigarette pants and paired with a sheer ball skirt. He also elongated it into shirt dresses that hugged the hips. Even the gold frog brooches were a nod in her direction: her favourite restaurant was La Grenouille.

The popular culture of the brand’s ’80s beginnings captured Gordon’s interest too. Working with the Warhol Foundation, he designed a shift dress that reproduced Andy Warhol’s iconic silkscreen portrait of Mrs. Herrera, and via a partnership with the New Yorker, he created an organza T-shirt and dress beaded with the cover design from the week of Mrs. Herrera’s first show. Editor in chief David Remnick, a rare sight at fashion shows, looked pleased from the front-row, with Martha Stewart on one side and Tory Burch on the other.

“She’s hailing a cab on Park Avenue,” Gordon said of the model in the silk twill headscarf, oversize shades, and collarless trench. Distinctions between uptown and downtown mostly don’t hold in 2026 New York. Still, with Oscar de la Renta having absented itself from the New York calendar, Carolina Herrera is the only brand that can truly lay claim to the rarefied territory. Gordon was feeling reflective backstage. “You know perfectly well how hard it is to make it in this industry. It was very much a male industry in 1981 when Mrs. Herrera started [her brand] as a mother of four. For it to have not only survived 45 years but to be a global fashion, fragrance, beauty, and accessories super-brand—I hope she feels proud.”

Vogue.com