CarolinaHerrera

Carolina Herrera Says Luxury Is Back

Filed under: Apparel

A lot of people have been wondering when luxury is coming back. It's been a tough few years for luxury brands. The recession has seen esteemed jewelers like Henry Dunay and fashion designers like Christian Lacroix lose their businesses. Whole chains of stores have been swallowed up. But if you ask the forever elegant fashion designer Carolina Herrera when luxury is returning she says it's already back. The Wall Street Journal has an interview with Herrera who says that her customers are beginning to spend once again. Herrera is best known for her ladylike gowns and dresses, which can cost over $10,000.

Her version of the new luxury walked the runway in her fall 2010 fashion show this week in New York City. Her designs did not stint on the expensive materials like mink and eel. The silhouette was ladylike and refined but also unapologetically lush. These are rich women's clothes. While Herrera has lowered her prices around ten percent and does have a successful second tier line she has no plans to embrace fast fashion. She has found that while her shoppers may be buying fewer clothes they are not willing to stop shopping entirely. In some ways what she speaks of is an older definition of luxury, the way it once was before mass luxury flooded the market. Women would shop carefully, select judiciously and expect clothing to last. It can be called thrift but it can also be seen as a mark of class.

Tags: Carolina Herrera, Carolina Herrera Runway, CarolinaHerrera, CarolinaHerreraRunway, fashion week fall 2010, FashionWeekFall2010, luxury

The Fashion Statement: Orange You Glad...?

by Kristin Young (RSS feed) —

Filed under: The Fashion Statement

Who can forget the scene in The Devil Wears Prada in which Miranda (Meryl Streep) lectures Andy (Anne Hathaway) on cerulean blue?

...I think it was Yves St Laurent, wasn't it, who showed cerulean military jackets? Cerulean quickly showed up in the collections of eight different designers. Then it filtered down through the department stores and then trickled on down into some tragic casual corner where you, no doubt, fished it out of some clearance bin.

The rant is memorable no only because it was snarky, but also because it was informative. That's exactly how it happens. Silhouettes and colors take on lives of their own and, before you know it, you have a full-fledged trend.

Halfway through New York fashion week, there's indication orange could be the next cerulean blue, in a manner of speaking (purple and red have been in the limelight recently).

Designers presented several orange "groups" -- three or four looks in one color scheme -- in their collections. Donna Karan's orange gowns and dresses were striking against a mostly pale palette of grays, silver and white. At Carolina Herrera (pictured above), orange gowns and dresses played beautifully off of an array of purple gowns. Carlos Miele showed a killer short cocktail dress with a racer back, one of the highlights of his show.

If that's the color of spring, thank goodness it's flattering. Orange you glad we aren't talking about mustard green?

Gallery: The Fashion Statement: Orange You Glad...?