Inside Carolina Herrera's Manhattan Atelier

Tweet

The recently renovated Carolina Herrera atelier and studio is in Midtown Manhattan, but standing outside in the pebbled rooftop garden lined with tiny manicured hedges, you’d think it was the courtyard of a palace. That is, until you realize you’re standing in the shadow of the Empire State Building. Like the garden (which was just added in December), the house of Herrera is an elegant setting that maintains a New York state of mind. Inside the design studio are monogrammed lampshades, behind which is a black-and-white portrait of Mrs. Herrera as a child, dressed as Snow White. In the picture she’s pouting because she wanted to play the witch. It seems the role just wasn’t in the cards for her: Hers, after all, is a studio that is full of laughter.

Walking through the showroom and atelier, the designer shows her library of prints from past collections. “I have the birds, the clovers and the mushrooms, too. And we keep adding! It’s fun, no?” Yes. As is the collection of pens, arranged according to the next season’s color palette, as well as the graphic-striped couches. After morning meetings, the team goes out to the roof to eat lunch together. “I think everyone wants to come and work here because of the gardens,” Mrs. Herrera jokes. “It’s very rare to have lunch on Seventh Avenue outside!”

A rack of dresses out Resort 2014 collection in the showroom, 

which is upstairs from the atelier.

  
All of the Carolina Herrera prints are developed from scratch in-house. 
“It’s a very amusing process,” the designer says.

 Sketches in the studio library. Each collection is carefully archived.

Carolina Herrera affectionately called Mrs. H in the office, in her design studio 

on Seventh Avenue in New York City’s Garment District.

The showroom at midday. “Everything has windows because for me, 

light is so important,” Mrs. Herrera says.

The Empire State Building as seen from the rooftop garden.

Spools of fabric in the atelier. Mrs. Herrera has been known to bring 

in inspirational pieces from her own closet during the design process.

Fabrics paired to looks for the resort 2014 collection. “She’ll touch something 

and know what’s right,” says Marino Isolani, a designer on the team.

Francois Bouchet, a pattern maker at Carolina Herrera, has been 
with the house for ten years. His favorite part of the job? 
“Working with young people, because they take risks.”

 Mrs. Herrera’s collection of back issues of Vogue, 
which used to belong to a close friend.

 “Many times I go through the pages of old Vogues. You know fashion is 

a repetition of ideas, so whatever you see in these books comes back,”  
Mrs. Herrera says.

Pressed clovers are collaged on the desk in the design studio.  

“I love clovers; I’m always looking for them,” Mrs. Herrera says. 

That day, she was wearing a skirt printed with clovers from a recent collection.

Selections by ANDREA JANKE Finest Accessories

Photo credit/Source: VOGUE

Photography by Victoria Will for VOGUE  

More Carolina Herrera To Love ... 

'Resplendent Resort 2014 by Carolina Herrera'

'“Prints, that’s what this collection is all about, prints,” said Carolina Herrera as a preface to her 2014 resort presentation. “And seasonless,” she added, “because there are no real seasons for clothes anymore; in summer somewhere it’s winter, or in winter somewhere it’s summer. It’s important everything can be worn all year round.”'

by @andreajankeofficial

Share

BALMAIN Resort 2014

Tweet

  

Last year jumpsuits, this year overalls. That’s the way things are trending.The zoomingly popular progress of the all-in-one has reached Paris. In Olivier Rousteing’s Balmain resort, overalls are the fashion centerpiece, or at least, they’re the pieces that catch the eye first in a quick scan of his extensive lineup (and there’s even more in the showroom). That might seem a bizarre thing to say when there are heavily embroidered pastel-colored lace-and-flower ballerina dresses to compete with, but you know how it is. The restless fashion eye continually seeks out the incoming thing, and Balmain’s brief but superembellished dresses are already established as a house signature.

So let’s study the utilitywear. Rousteing has approached overalls from three angles. There’s one in denim, a second in houndstooth tweed, both with low waists and slouchy pants. A third, belted at the waist, is silk printed to look like denim and with something more like the draped top of a fifties cocktail dress than a mechanic’s bib.

Overalls for evening really? Well, anything is possible in fashion if it’s carried out with conviction and some sense of it fitting into a brand’s culture. Balmain’s background is young, glam, and bling: The overalls fit well on the body, but also extend the reach of the label into something more casual.

Selections by ANDREA JANKE Finest Accessories 

Photos: Courtesy of BALMAIN

More To Love ...

'Haute Couture | Jean Paul Gaultier Fall 2013 Couture'

"There was a whiff of the 80s Memphis-era palette too in the royal blues, hot pinks, and plum tones, in the layered chiffons that picked up the refracted colors in Bohemian crystal bead trim, and in the patterns based on the mottled covers of high school pupils’ traditional notebooks, worked in velvet flocked fabrics or in micro mosaics of Swarovski crystals."

Share

Airy Floral Prints by Giambattista Valli Resort 2104

Tweet

Grey Gardens' Little Edie was Giambattista Valli's muse for Resort. "I love her eccentricity, her extreme point of view," he said by phone from Paris, where he's preparing his Couture show. Albert Maysles' dotty heroine is a far cry from the European jet-setters who favor Valli's clothes, but if she was an unlikely influence, she was also an inspired one. The collection had a lot of verve, with airy floral prints, one of which came complete with bumblebees, a Jackson Pollock scribble (the artist was an East Ender, too), fluoro-brights, and plenty of Valli's favorite color, red.

Little Edie came through in the scarves tied over the models' scraped-back hair, the dresses over pants ("I don't like women in skirts," she famously said), and dresses and blouses with fluttery capelets built in. The animal-print Birks (the season's hottest shoe) aren't an Edie-ism, but she might've appreciated their irreverence. "Things are more ruleless for Resort," Valli said. He's always been known for his flourishes, but the more he embraces ease, the better his collections get. A T-shirt-and-long-bohemian-skirt combo, worn with those flat garden shoes, was probably the strongest look here. But to be sure, there was a lot of polish in the collection, too. One floral was printed on embroidered organza, and the lace dresses were lined with tulle underskirts. They created extravagant volumes evocative of what he does for Couture.

Selections by ANDREA JANKE Finest Accessories 

Photo credit/Source: VOGUE 

More To Love ... 

'Gorgeous Dressing by Roksanda Ilincic Resort 2014'

"To understand something about Roksanda Ilincic’s elegant worldview, she is not about grunge you have to imagine the beautifully serene expanse of the light-filled office and showroom she and her team occupy in London’s East End. It surveys a canal, which was once a toxic-looking watery dump for shopping carts and worse ..."

Share