In his nearly six years at Carolina Herrera, designer Wes Gordon has drawn inspiration from many of Ms. Herrera’s creations, but never from the designer himself. As one of the most photographed designers in the world, and with household 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 with subtitles Portrait of an icon It was an instinct, Gordon thought, whose time had come.
Herrera is Venezuelan. She spent the first half of her life, until the age of forty, in that country, before moving to New York with her family and quickly establishing her brand. “Her time at La Vega [her husband’s family’s estate] was like a novel, a dream,” says Gordon. “Then she moved here and changed her wardrobe, there was a real working women’s atmosphere.” His new collection reflects that trajectory, alternating between exposed dresses in subtropical colors and a black skirt suit with a feminine curved neckline, or between floral shirt dresses and bouclé-tweed dresses with gold chain details.
The lookbook is styled with signature Herrera embellishments, including a black net veil like the one she wore in a 1979 Mapplethorpe portrait and the colored gemstone earrings she chose for a conversation with Andy Warhol, which resulted in one of his famous colorful screen prints. She would probably approve of an evening look in which a white blouse with voluminous sleeves (one of her signatures) was combined with a long column skirt paved with crystals. A color-blocked dress with a celadon bodice and a grass-green full skirt exuded the grandeur Herrera was known for, but in a more casual style: a handy trick.
