Carolina Herrera Fall Winter 2026-2027 “A Woman, a City, a Statement”. Story by RUNWAY MAGAZINE. Photo Courtesy: Carolina Herrera.
Back in New York and back in form, Wes Gordon presented a Carolina Herrera collection that felt less like a runway and more like a quiet shift in the brand’s gravitational center. After the cinematic sweep of the Spring show in Madrid, Gordon returned to the Herrera home base—both geographically and spiritually—to deliver something sharper, freer, and far more contemporary.
This time, there were no gowns brushing marble or baroque metaphors stitched into eveningwear. Instead: separates. Tailored. Unapologetic. Unmistakably urban.
She’s a woman on the go, She’s a total New Yorker. And so he dressed her accordingly—enlisting the city’s own to wear the clothes: Amy Sherald, Rachel Feinstein, Hannah Traore, Ming Smith. Artists, gallerists, real figures with real gravity. The result was not a fantasy, but a living portrait.
There was talk of Peggy Guggenheim as a muse—her eccentricity more conceptual than literal. No bat sunglasses, no overt homage. But the subtext was there: bold silhouettes, unconventional details, and an irreverent confidence laced through the tailoring. The stiletto sketch, lifted from the Good Girl fragrance bottle, became a recurring motif—worn like a memory or a challenge.
Calla lilies, subtle and suggestive, adorned jackets and buttons. A nod to Carolina Herrera herself, perhaps, whose youthful elegance was echoed in nipped waists and structured shoulders. But these weren’t museum pieces. Gordon paired them with asymmetric skirts, and just as easily imagined them with jeans and heels. The message: use the archive, but don’t inherit it.
Eveningwear was reimagined for a different kind of night. Sequined knit sets offered the sparkle, minus the stiffness. A fringed tie-neck jacket, worn with black denim by Eliza Douglas, quietly closed the door on cocktail clichés.
Gordon didn’t erase the Herrera legacy—he edited it. Polite society was still in the room (three generations of it, reportedly), but the tone had changed. Less posed. More in motion. The kind of elegance that hails its own cab, checks its own coat, and doesn’t ask permission.
This isn’t reinvention. It’s recalibration. And it’s long overdue.
See All Looks Carolina Herrera Fall 2026
