A typical runway show lasts eight minutes or so and consists of 35 to 40 outfits; models walk up and down a catwalk about the length of a city block; the audience is made up of three or four hundred guests. For his latest Carolina Herrera show, creative director Wes Gordon doubled the amount of looks, carpeted a 450-meter-long runway, and invited 1,500 guests. The backdrop for his parade of sumptuous ball gowns, carnation-embroidered dresses, and polka-dotted suits was none other than Madrid’s Plaza Mayor, the epicenter of the Spanish capital.
Carolina Herrera, of course, has deep Latin roots; Herrera herself is from Venezuela, and Puig, the brand’s parent company, is Spanish. Still, it was the first time since its founding, in 1981, that Carolina Herrera has held a main collection show outside of New York. The occasion felt momentous, and Gordon made sure he didn’t just use Madrid as a backdrop. Inspired by everything from the city’s Golden Age in the 17th century to the decadence of La Movida, the 1980s post-Franco creative upswelling that Pedro Almodóvar captured so well in his films, the designer partnered with five iconic Spanish creatives to bring his vision to life.
Sybilla, a star in Movida-era Madrid, lent her avant-garde sensibility with cut-out dresses that were as sophisticated as they were daring. Alejandro Gómez Palomo, of Palomo Spain, reimagined the white shirt, a Carolina Herrera staple, with poetic sleeves and ruffled collars. Andrés Gallardo contributed porcelain blooms that appeared as brooches, pendants, and earrings, referencing some of the floral embroideries on the clothes, while Levens, a crystal brand founded by artist Mar del Hoyo, was responsible for the sculptural, organically shaped glass jewels. A few ensembles were topped with perfectly tailored capes, courtesy of Casa Seseña, a fourth-generation family-run company that has dressed everyone from Pablo Picasso (who is said to have been buried in a Seseña cape) to Ernest Hemingway and King Alfonso XIII.
“Madrid has always been one of my favorite cities in the world, and it is home to incredible creatives,” said Gordon, whose muses included Spanish icons like Paloma Picasso and Cayetana Fitz-James Stuart, the late Duchess of Alba. “If people were coming all the way here, I felt we needed to give them a show.” That he did.
