Happy Birthday, Carolina Herrera

Wise, witty, stylish, tireless, disciplined, intuitive, cool under pressure — Carolina Herrera still reigns supreme in the kingdom of fashion. In honor of the designer’s 86th birthday, WWD combed through the archives to chronicle her style and caught up with a few of her friends to try to dispel her magic.

Herrera first appeared in the pages of WWD in a photo that was taken at the 21 Club in 1975, following the “Lucky Lady” premiere at the Ziegfeld Theater, wearing a one-shoulder semi-sheer gown that looks strikingly current today. Two years later she was featured in an elaborate multi-tiered ballgown with a lace overlay on her shoulders and a statement black bow in her chignon, while dancing with Harry Platt at the Embassy Ball in Atlanta. Herrera appeared to repeat the look a few months later for the opening of “Vanity Fair” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute.

In December 1977, Herrera landed on WWD’s cover wearing an off-the-shoulder Bill Blass Infanta gown of black lace and chiffon with a cloud-like white taffeta skirt. Herrera joined C.Z. Guest, Count Vega del Ren and Lee Copley Thaw for a gathering for Her Highness, the Rajmata of Jaipur and His Highness, Maharajah of Jaipur. In that “Sitting Pretty” article, she explained, “I think you have to make an effort even if you’ve been invited to a dinner in a public restaurant.” The designer has certainly lived up to that year after year.

Air Mail founder Graydon Carter said Wednesday, “I’ve never seen Carolina not kitted out in anything that couldn’t be used for a Best Dressed List fashion shoot. And she makes it all look absolutely effortless. We were in a convertible driving to Malibu during one of the Southern California earthquakes years ago. You could see things rattling a bit around us, but she had a scarf around her head, Grace Kelly-style, and just stared straight ahead. She didn’t give the earthquake a second thought. Very cool under pressure. “

Photos of Herrera in WWD archives reflect that time and again. They also show Herrera out and about at parties, openings, luncheons and other social gatherings. Before jetting off to Caracas for the holidays in 1978, she and her husband Reinaldo hosted 80 friends for lunch at Doubles. She was pictured sharing a laugh with “In Cold Blood” author Truman Capote. On a WWD cover in December 1979, Herrera was featured wearing a Tan Giudicelli black velvet silver gown with white satin archangel sleeves, as one of the BPs (Beautiful People) “taking their annual inventory of each other’s most lavish finery” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In the 1970s and 1980s, she also showed off her dancing at Le Club and Studio 54 among other locales.

Stylist Herve Pierre, who first befriended Herrera during his 15-year run working at her company, recalled how Herrera was once recognized on Seventh Avenue by the tour guide of a double-decker sightseeing bus. En route to a multiday over-the-top anniversary celebration for Valentino in Rome years ago, the designer had packed accordingly for all the top-shelf events with garment bags, shopping bags, a hat box and other essentials. Pierre said he and four assistants carried all the clothes and accompanied Herrera outside to meet her driver, who turned out to be late. “It was like that scene in ‘Pretty Woman,’ when Julia Roberts arrives at the hotel with all those people carrying all those boxes. Mrs. Herrera was of course in her Manolos holding the leases for her two poodles waiting for the bloody driver to arrive,” Pierre said.

“As the bus passed by the guide said, ‘Here, you have the Fashion Avenue with all the major designers. Oh my God, on your left, on your left, Carolina Herrera is there!’” Pierre chuckled. “With one hand on the leashes, she was waving and waving like the Queen of England with the other hand. Everybody was taking pictures of us standing there.”

Pierre mentioned another memorable exchange that happened outside of Herrera’s offices years ago, when he escorted her to the front of the building to meet her driver. “One day there was a bike messenger on the sidewalk; he screamed at her once she was seated in the car. I said to her, ‘I’m so sorry. What did he scream at you?’ She said, ‘He screamed at me — hey lady, you look so f*ck!ng fabulous.’” (A comment that made them both laugh.)

Another longtime friend, Alejandra Cicognani, recalled attending a Luis Miguel concert last year at Madison Square Garden that was capped off with Miguel walking over to Herrera to present her with a bouquet of flowers. “The entire audience noticed her presence, and erupted into applause. It felt like they were celebrating her as much as him,” Cicognani said. “As we left the venue, people called out, ‘Mrs. Herrera!’ and, ever so gracious and generous, she stopped for photos and greeted everyone who approached her. She truly is the definition of a lady.”

Air Mail’s editor at large Amy Fine Collins has known Herrera for decades, having met the designer through her husband, who helps to select the International Best Dressed List, which Collins owns and oversees. “It’s extraordinary — Carolina is made of something different than the rest of us. It’s astonishing that the more you know her, the more one is in awe of what she has done, who she is and how she lives. There’s more there than meets the eye.“

Collins continued, “An extraordinary mother, in spite of how hard she works, this is a woman who never gets sick. She never complains about anything. Her daughter Patricia [Lansing] once told me, ‘I’ve never heard in my entire life my mother say that she was tired.’”

The designer can deplane a transatlantic flight in Madrid, as she often does to visit one of her daughters, “looking perfect and full of energy and vitality,” Collins said. “I’ve never seen anything like it in my life. Her looks and style seem inborn. She really is the embodiment of everything that the International Best Dressed List has ever stood for, ever since Eleanor [Lambert] founded it in 1940.”

“Having established her own look, Herrera serves as a beacon for generations of women without meaning to or trying to. She’s just a paragon in that way,” Collins added. “Also, she has an inner grace that is projected outward into her appearance, and her way of living, moving and dressing.”