NEW YORK – The small chamber on the ground floor at the Museum of Modern Art was nothing much to look at on its own — no priceless art, no revelatory architecture. But the glass wall at the far end of the space let in the sparkling light of the city, and that is always something quite special. The music on the soundtrack, a little Cole Porter, gave the Monday evening a kind of timeless, foot-tapping, champagne-popping glamour.
And sure enough, at the end of the Carolina Herrera fall 2018 fashion show, waiters shimmied through the crowd balancing silver trays of bubbly. After the models had all walked and the applause was finished, it was time to toast a finale and a beginning. After more than 30 years, Herrera was stepping down from her brand, settling into the role of ambassador and passing the creative reigns to designer Wes Gordon.
Gordon grew up in Atlanta and interned with Oscar de la Renta and Tom Ford before launching his own collection, distinguished by its romantic and feminine sensibility. Gordon was not a hipster designer but rather one who tapped into the quiet formality of modern Southern gentry. He put his label on hiatus last year when he began consulting at Carolina Herrera.
The final collection under Herrera’s direction was mostly an homage to a kind of discreet glamour that, while still admired, is often in short supply, requiring too much restraint and good posture to pull off.
