Carolina Herrera Spring 2027 marks 45 years in full color

Wes Gordon celebrates the house’s New York roots with white shirts, vivid colors, and an Andy Warhol collaboration rooted in the founder’s own story.

Carolina Herrera launched her fashion house in New York in 1981, building a style around crisp white shirts, full skirts, and bold color. For its 45th anniversary, creative director Wes Gordon returned to those signatures with a Spring 2027 collection that found new ways to wear them.

Herrera reportedly wore a white shirt from her debut collection, paired with a ball skirt, bringing a piece of the house’s beginnings into the celebration.

*All photos from Carolina Herrera’s official website and Instagram page*

White shirts take on evening plans

Gordon paired white shirts with cigarette pants and a cummerbund, styled them with sheer ball skirts, and extended them into shirtdresses that skimmed the hips. A collared halter dress and a floor-length shirtdress carried the same clean lines into eveningwear.

Elongated jackets and sweeping A-line skirts played with proportion, balancing slimmer shapes with fuller silhouettes. Chiffon, organza, metallic lace, and gazar added texture and movement, while a sheer black gown with a ruffled neckline offered a softer evening look.

The styling gave the collection some of its most useful ideas, particularly the way a simple shirt could anchor a more dramatic skirt.

Polka dots meet taxi yellow

Black-and-white polka dots returned alongside versions in black and sky blue, a shade Gordon called Cielo. Painterly florals softened the graphic patterns, while Herrera red and taxi yellow brought stronger bursts of color.

The yellow connected New York’s cabs with the house’s fragrance history and echoed the tulips lining the runway at Lincoln Center’s David H. Koch Theater. The display contained 28,798 flowers after Gordon’s children each took one from the original 28,800.

Accessories continued the playful mood with leather flowers covering sculptural handbags, tiny golden frogs decorating select satin Mimi Bags, and oversized pearls and tassels adding detail.

A Warhol portrait steps onto the runway

Herrera’s friendship with Andy Warhol began in the late 1970s, before she founded the house. According to the brand, he admired her Van Cleef & Arpels evening bag at a 1979 dinner and proposed a trade, offering her portrait in exchange.

Warhol photographed Herrera at the Factory, creating Polaroids that became the basis for painted portraits. He also attended her first collection presentation at the Metropolitan Club in 1981.

Through a partnership with the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, his 1979 portrait appeared on an embroidered minidress and the Jacqueline bag. A separate collaboration with The New Yorker brought the magazine cover from the week of Herrera’s debut show onto an organza T-shirt and an embellished dress.

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One last stop at Herrera’s

After the show, guests gathered at Herrera’s, a one-night tribute to Mortimer’s at its former Lexington Avenue address. The restaurant had been a favorite of Carolina and Reinaldo Herrera and a meeting place for New York’s creative and social circles.

Artist Tim Snell created three new works for the evening, while illustrators from The New Yorker painted guest portraits, extending the collection’s art references into the celebration.

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The anniversary drew on the founder’s world, but the clothes offered ideas for today, especially that white shirt and evening skirt. Forty-five years later, it remains a pairing worth making plans for.

See the full collection below: