Modern drama and bold colors set the tone for creative director Wes Gordon’s Fall 2020 collection, a collection he described as one grand gesture for Carolina Herrera. Within this gesture, he celebrated house codes including dynamic prints, hyper-pigmented hues, and a sense of optimism. Within singular focus, the collection is a statement of disciplined exuberance.
Grounded by optic white and jet black, color punctuated the austere, larger-than-life runway, held at The Shed near Hudson Yards in New York. Exquisite fabrics draped in parallel folds, mimicking fluting on a column or even unadorned planes of simplicity. Seeking drama, volume, and grandeur, Gordon explored simpler silhouettes with a modern edge, complemented by tonal touches of cadmium red and zinnia pink. Color, and the dynamic play of color, has become increasingly important to Wes as he guides the design team and atelier to continue Carolina Herrera’s vision of modern elegance while evolving concepts of looks for evening and day.
Inspired by the Spanish artist Francisco de Zurbarán, Gordon looked to Spanish oil paintings and how the 16th-century artist used color to achieve impact and drama, translating an austere, monastic quality to some of the easy dresses that made their way down the runway. Silhouettes stun with their austere simplicity, realized in pure lines or in crushing billows of prints. Exhilarating color pairings surprise and delight: clementine orange is succulent against aquamarine blue, pale celestial blue flutters just above a deeper cornflower blue. Wes continues to prove that modernizing the collection does not sacrifice the opulent and romantic nature of Carolina Herrera, which may be his grandest gesture of all.
The Fall 2020 collection will be available later this year.
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