Carolina Herrera: Audrey Hepburn for today

By

Godfrey Deeny

Published
Sep 12, 2017

Just when one was about to practically asphyxiate from the endless display of redundant athleisure –meaning girls dressing in mountaineer’s club en route to a dance club – in the current New York season, when along came Carolina Herrera with a collection of studied elegance and old world refinement. Audrey Hepburn - playing the part of Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany – used to live near to the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), on 53rd street in New York, where Herrera presented her collection. That made her the first designer to ever do so inside the most important contemporary art museum on the planet in the past 75 years. Eat your heart out Francois Pinault and Bernard Arnault.
 

While posters of Grace Kelly, captured in silk screens by Andy Warhol, sell inside the hallowed walls of the MOMA. Without doubt, both of these beauties would have loved the collection of Carolina Herrera presented Monday evening inside the sculpture garden of MOMA, an ode to timeless elegance and graceful beauty.
 
In truth, this was not a vintage selection by the Venezuelan designer, since its range was narrow. However, working in a tight conceptual circle – basically just dresses and gowns, and absolutely no jackets or pantsuits (with one exception) – Herrera evoked some magical images of ladylike beauty.

The purple micro gingham swirling opening dresses; marvelous big shouldered blouses and dynamic Restoration damsel blouses – were all worthy of latter day beauties from a Constable painting or the heroines of a Jane Austen novel. Combined with askew ruffle semi-sheer blouses, erratic polkadot picnic dresses and Photoshop enhanced mega floral print damsel-in-distress ball gowns.
 
 “It’s about time we had some real fashion,” shrugged Herrera, after posing for photos, snug between hubby Reinaldo Herrera Guevara and Mario Testino. Is right, in our view!