Putting the Oscar de la Renta-Laura Kim debacle behind her must have been on Carolina Herrera’s mind as she prepared this collection. In December, Carolina Herrera Ltd. sued Oscar de la Renta for the stated purpose of enforcing a non-compete clause that would have prevented Kim from returning to her former employer for a few months. Yet a reading of the filings also suggested some internal drama — a coup attempt by Herrera’s then-chief executive officer Francois Kress. The legal upshot: Kim went to work for Oscar de la Renta. The internal upshot: Herrera triumphed, and Kress lost his job.
Yet the process aired laundry that should have stayed in-house, as the firm’s own filings praised Kim’s work relative to Herrera’s, so Herrera may have felt a certain pressure to deliver for fall. And for the most part she did, with a collection that was lovely, if at times a bit flat. In recent seasons, Herrera has embraced a younger direction, toning down her grander statements in terms of design. To the latter point, here she joined New York’s grounded movement, showing almost everything with flat, rugged boots.
Herrera has long loved a white shirt. For fall she worked it numerous ways — big pilgrim collar; wrapped waist; buttoned high with ribbon at the neck — most often with black or white skirts in fluid volumes that signaled the collection’s dominant mood of relaxed propriety; “calm elegance,” read her program notes. A smart, funnel neck coat in teal wool had a velvet bow on each hip; a sportswear moment layered a burgundy sweater and white shirt over fluid skirt.
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The gentility carried into evening as Herrera shunned the ballgowns and corseted constructions of which she has been so fond in favor of fluid, often demure silhouettes — a gown with a long-sleeved, rose gold bodice and pale-pink crepe skirt; a tiered, dotted gown in plum-silk chiffon. Two young colleagues with personal experience of the genre (experience this reviewer lacks) referred to the look as “Yeshiva chic.” That translates as low on the va-voom scale — and hallelujah to that. The red carpet world does not want for more mermaids and crystal-on-nude sirens. (Whoever determined that glamour is code for cheesy?) The inspiration for a couple of Herrera’s chaste beauties, a ruffled shirt and long skirt and a voluminous cape affair, seemed less kosher and more couture, of the Valentino variety. Not unappealing, but a bell of recognition Herrera didn’t need to ring. She has enough ideas of her own.