Carolina Herrera Spring 2025 Is an Optimist’s Polka Dot Flower-power Dream

Wes Gordon was the consummate host Sunday night at the cocktail party he hosted at the gorgeous Upper East Side apartment he shares with husband Paul Arnhold, urging guests, including big boss Marc Puig, toward Champagne and food. And when I asked, he graciously gave a tour of the Arnhold family’s incredible collection of Meissen porcelain — the pieces that are not at the Frick Museum, that is.

Not yet 40, the once mop-haired and now closely shorn Gordon has matured into a New York fashion leader at the Puig-backed Carolina Herrera brand, which continues to quietly but determinedly expand, with plans for its second destination resort show set for November in Mexico City.

Similarly, Gordon’s collections have also become more assured.

On Monday morning, he showed the brand’s spring 2025 collection at Liberty Place, setting the tone for the season’s new, optimistic mood. Because who doesn’t need that right now?

Gordon limited himself to a tight color palette, just six hues compared to his usual 15 or 20, he said during a preview, to make a point with graphic glamour and flower power.

Set around American sculptor Isamu Noguchi’s circular Sunken Garden installation at Liberty Place, the collection started in black-and-white, inspired by the delightfully dotty packaging from the debut Carolina Herrera fragrance launched in 1997, before moving into lipstick red and pink, taxicab yellow and a blue Gordon named “delphinium.”

Capri pants are picking up steam as a trend, and naturally, Herrera’s took a matador flavor paired with a long black button-front blazer with white paisley raffia, bead and sequin embroidery. There was also dramatic flair to a new waist silhouette cut high in back and dipped down in front, seen on a pair of sleek black shorts worn with the seasonal update on a crisp white Herrera shirt for a new kind of suit.

“It’s about confidence and clean expressions of shapes and ideas and making sure the clothes aren’t too tricky,” Gordon said of his intent.

The collection used big, bold, handmade silk flowers throughout, including on a dazzling black top with a black rose at one shoulder and a single ruffled sleeve, worn with a sheer black floral embroidered skirt. Flowers in sleek chignons looked fresh again, too.

Daywear was more effortless, with knit skirt sets dotted with floral embroideries or edged in lace in a nod to the lingerie trend; draped jersey dresses in Happy pink, and classic tailoring in solids or houndstooth checks for customers now coming to the brand for that, the designer said.

As usual, Gordon showed a lot of head-turners, or maybe we should call them jaw-droppers, including an arch ’80s black-and-white polka dot drop-waist ballgown, a blue silk faille hourglass gown with a crinoline that made it float, and a strapless pink bouquet of a dress with train designed to look “like someone dumped a wheelbarrow of blossoms” on it, Gordon said.

The guy’s on his game.