Carolina Herrera: Optimism in Dark Times NYFW

Fashion weeks aren’t really about clothes. This world of shows and runways and sets and music and annoying scheduling and editors and retailers dressed in their real-life best, and influencers and celebrities, in borrowed evening garb at 10 in the morning – isn’t about the clothes. It’s about our reactions to the clothes and to the messaging they deliver.

I found myself with an odd and unexpected reaction to Wes Gordon’s spring messaging at Carolina Herrera. Gordon is an emotional designer, yet with a very limited range of emotion where his runway is concerned – joy, joy and more joy. He believes in the power of clothes to uplift; distract from life’s woe’s; make us happy, even if only superficially. These days we’ll take it, right?

Typically, Gordon has me at the florals, and I leave his show happy, when I love the clothes, and when I don’t. This time something edged in on the joy – wistfulness. His models walked to the brash forecasting of show tune philosophies – “Who told you you're allowed to rain on my parade/” and “tomorrow will be brighter than the good old days.” Suddenly Gordon’s insistence on sharing joy in a harsh world played like a gutsy challenge. So is he right or delusional?

Either way, the clothes were indeed happy, and beautifully so. They were also very smart. Gordon’s mandate at Herrera is not easy to negotiate: to maintain and modernize. Maintain the polish and flourish on which the house was built; modernize the messaging and the clothes to attract younger customers.

He opened with high evening, and the ample ballskirts, ruching, trains, and effusiveness one expects from Herrera. But he soon shifted, not away from such joyful expression, but towards more pragmatic and youthful renderings of it. He showed little, sexy suits; unfettered bustier dresses, an engaging black-and-white series including snappy tweeds, a bodycon striped dress and lacy shift secured with shoulder bows. Revolutionary? No. But alluring, upbeat and joyful enough to make one hope that Gordon’s optimism is not delusion but prescience.