Credit: Nuestro Stories
She is impeccable, her short hair swept back, and wearing a silk taffeta full-ball skirt topped by a collared crisp white shirt with button cuffs. The soft rustle of the skirt announces the arrival of Venezuelan-American designer Carolina Herrera, the casual-meets-formal Latina who revolutionized New York society, becoming synonymous with American fashion.
Herrera was born in Caracas in 1939 to the son of a former officer and a rich socialite mother and grew up going to shows by Balenciaga and wearing Lanvin and Dior.
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After an unhappy first marriage, she moved to New York in the 1970s with her second husband Reinaldo Herrera Guevara, a Venezuelan aristocrat and television personality who landed a job at the magazine Vanity Fair in Manhattan.
She first appeared on the International Best Dressed List in 1972 and was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1980. She became known in New York circles for her beauty and her timeless, poised style.
None other than fashion doyenne and friend Diana Vreeland suggested Herrera venture into fashion.
And she did.
The Moment Carolina Herrera Knew Fashion was Her Calling
Herrera was 42 and a mother of four when she decided in 1981 that fashion was her future. She graced the catwalk with what she would wear to an uptown Manhattan restaurant.
At the launch of her first collection, Herrera was asked to describe her aesthetic. “It’s my own style.”
Her clothes were simple, cut well but with one extravagant touch – such as sleeves, a full skirt or a stunning belt. Feminine, yet understated – signature Herrera.
“In that respect, you could compare her to (Coco) Chanel,” Dr. Valerie Steele, the director and chief curator of The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology said in an interview with Coveteur.
“The Chanel look, that was (Gabrielle) Chanel and the Carolina Herrera look, it is Mrs. Herrera. I think she is someone that has really merged an aristocratic Euro-Latina style with the kind of casual glamour of New York society.”
Herrera brought elegance to the opulence of the 1980s – think Studio 54, Andy Warhol and Bianca Jagger – and she re-envisioned volume as did her contemporaries Jean Paul Gaultier and Vivienne Westwood.
She won awards such as The Designer of Excellence Award, CFDA Founders Award, Women’s Wear Designer
Of the Year, among others, and graced the cover of Vogue seven times.
She has dressed movie stars and First Ladies, from Sarah Paulson and Rene Zellweger to Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama.
Today, she is her brand’s global ambassador, having stepped down in 2018 as creative director (making way for Wes Gordon) of the billion dollar international company
She was 79 then and is still going strong as one of the grand dames of fashion. She is the vision of her brand with her perfect blonde hair, bright red lips and crisp white shirt – with black pencil trousers or full-ball skirt.
Herrera is the Venezuelan emigree that became the epitome of American chic, a Latina at the top table of fashion.
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