For a designer known for her refined elegance, there could hardly have been a better venue for Carolina Herrera to show her wares: the storied Frick Collection on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue.
Dressed in filmy dresses and gowns in ever-deepening shades of pink and rose, her models snaked around the museum's garden court, where guests lining the edges included actress Penelope Cruz, sitting next to Vogue editor Anna Wintour.
Afterward, the Venezuelan- born Herrera waxed rhapsodic over the museum’s decision to allow her to mount a fashion show there.
“This is my favourite museum in New York and always has been, since I was a very young girl,” she said of the museum established by steel magnate Henry Clay Frick some 80 years ago. “It is the most divine place and I was really very honoured ... it’s the first time that they’ve opened it for a fashion show and I think I was in heaven, because I love it.”
Herrera, 76, has long been known for her elegant designs and has clothed style icons such as Jacqueline Kennedy and Michelle Obama. At Monday’s show, she introduced a modern flair, while still portraying the air of fantasy that she says is essential to fashion.
“I am in my rose period,” she said backstage. “I started with very light shades of pink and then it went a little bit more intense ... and I think for a woman to wear something light and pink, it’s great because it gives you a different face, you know?”
Those pinks ranged from a pastel, filmy pink shirt dress – very short – to suits with floral accents, to longer slip dresses. She also worked with “techno fabric” to achieve, in some garments, a pleated effect. “It gives the idea that it’s pleated and at the same time, it is very seductive, sensual, transparent, [but] not vulgar.”
Herrera noted that in every collection, she seeks an element of mystery. “You cannot be going out naked,” she said. “No mystery in that.”
