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“I don’t sketch PORTR AIT that much and I can’t even sew a button. I have a team; we discuss OFThe patrician glamour A of the fashion LADY brand Carolina Herrera owes much ideas and they to the natural eye of its founder. At the recent Audi Fashion Festival in help me put Singapore, she provides an up close and personal introduction to her eponymous fashion label, which makes its Malaysian debut this month. everything Text Hong Xinyi Photography Carolina Herrera together. It’s a very fun process.” crisp white shirt, cool blonde coif, immaculate make- friend, Vogue editor Diana Vreeland, Herrera and her daughter, Carolina up and an imperturbable poise that borders on the Herrera turned her hand to fashion Herrera de Báez, who imperious – these are the hallmarks of Carolina design, unveiling her first collection at is creative director of Herrera’s much-lauded signature style and they are New York’s exclusive Metropolitan Club her eponymous brand’s Aall on display when we meet at The St Regis Singapore during to the strains of Cole Porter tunes played fragrance division. her recent visit. In town to open the Audi Fashion Festival, the live by a pianist and rave reviews by Venezuela-born, New York-based designer issues a brief, playful fashion critics. The rest, to use a cliché, “oooh” when we ask about how she runs her business, archly is history. imitating a child’s response to a scary ghost story. From the very beginning, Herrera’s clients “I don’t get involved with the business side,” she says. “I focus on have included upper-crust society icons the creative.” Never formally trained as a designer, the 74-year- and true-blue royalty. She doesn’t just old says candidly: “I don’t sketch that much and I can’t even sew dress them; by virtue of birth, breeding a button. I have a team; we discuss ideas and they help me put and lifestyle, she is one of them. None everything together. It’s a very fun process. What’s most important of the top luxury houses today can lay is my eye – for proportions, for mixing colours...” claim to such a direct line of aristocratic heritage. As Carolina Herrera de Báez, It might be refreshing but her no-nonsense self-assessment of her the third of Herrera’s four daughters and talents hardly tells the whole story. Perhaps more than any luxury creative director of the brand’s fragrance fashion house operating today, the label that bears her name division, puts it: “Her personal history is draws its aura of patrician glamour from its founding designer’s an important part of the brand and it’s personal history. Born into a blue-blood, old-money colonial not just a story. It is alive and real because family in Caracas, Herrera’s father was Minister of Foreign my mother is still here and part of the Affairs, while her first husband was a Venezuelan landowner. company. When I make perfumes, I think Her second husband, Reinaldo Herrera Guevara, was the of her.” fifth Marqués of Torre Casa of Spain, and her introduction to couture came from her mother and grandmother, who favoured A good back story, however, is hardly designers like Elsa Schiaparelli, Yves Saint Laurent, Balenciaga, a guarantee for business success. In the Lanvin and Dior. In the 1960s, she worked for her friend Emilio early days of the brand, Ellin Saltzman, a Pucci in his Caracas boutique and, after her second marriage, in former buyer for Saks Fifth Avenue, recalls: 1968, assumed a jet-set lifestyle. “My God, another socialite designing a fly-by-night collection no one will ever In 1980, she moved to New York and became a fixture in buy or wear.” The brand’s long-running Manhattan’s social circuit, making the International Best- success testifies that Herrera is far more Dressed Hall of Fame (the first of many appearances on such than a stereotypical social butterfly with a sartorial lists). That same year, upon the advice of another designing hobby.

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fragrance business based in Barcelona. Herrera first worked she befriended artists Andy Warhol with Puig in 1987, to develop a line of perfumes (which remain and Robert Mapplethorpe, and was best-sellers even in today’s saturated and competitive fragrance captured in paintings and photographs market). In 1995, Puig acquired the fashion brand, with Herrera by both. “I met Robert in 1974. He remaining creative director. had a difficult life and was so talented. We respected each other,” she recalls. “I chose to work with them because I wanted the business to “We were very different but you cannot grow and because they have very elegant minds; the perfumes we only have friends who are like yourself.” first collaborated on were wonderfully done. We have a fantastic Mapplethorpe died in 1989, aged 42, relationship and I have never lost control of the brand image,” says and to pay tribute to her friend, Herrera Herrera. “The fact that it is a family company gave me confidence designed a collection that year based because you don’t feel like you are dealing with strangers. You on his motorcycle jackets, using velvet have to be able to trust the person who is your business partner.” instead of leather. “You can still wear them now. They still look contemporary,” As for all those new customers in emerging markets who may not she says, with understated pride. yet be familiar with her name, Herrera prefers to turn the focus to her designs rather than her autobiography. “They should know In addition to Herrera de Báez, who is that Carolina Herrera is about feminine designs that are very chic also the creative advisor for CH Carolina and very well-made. I like women to look glamorous, elegant, and Herrera, Herrera’s youngest daughter, sophisticated. It is my responsibility to make them look beautiful,” Patricia Lansing, also works for the she says. “I don’t like trends and I don’t do avant-garde looks. I company as a creative consultant. But the design timeless pieces for the modern woman.” designer is not fixated on trying to cultivate a multi-generation fashion empire. “We While that’s certainly true, it would be a mistake to assume that have never had the stereotype of a family the typical Carolina Herrera woman is all immaculate perfection. business and she has never pressured us “She’s also fun, I think,” says Herrera, with a hint of a smile. to get involved,” says Herrera de Báez. “Maybe a little bit mischievous.” The latest Fall 2013 collection, “She actually separates work and family Last year, Carolina Herrera Ltd reported Carolina Herrera for instance, features classic 1940s-inspired silhouettes rendered in really well; we don’t talk about fashion menswear and more than a billion US dollars in revenue womenswear take to vibrant colours and very contemporary, somewhat surreal prints – a at the dinner table.” After all, there are for the first time, with a 90 per cent the catwalk during beautiful juxtaposition that would look interesting on both uptown so many other interesting things to talk increase in global sales. International the recent Audi heiresses and downtown ‘It’ girls. about,” adds her mother. “The moment I expansion has been steady, with stores Fashion Festival in Singapore. arrive home, I am somebody else. There is opening in new markets like Asia, the After all, Herrera is no stranger to moving with ease between the nothing more boring than talking about Middle East and Latin America in worlds of society balls and freewheeling bohemia. In the 1970s, business all the time.” recent years. Today, the label is carried in more than 280 stores worldwide and Herrera acknowledging there are 100 standalone boutiques for the audience at the CH Carolina Herrera, a lifestyle label end of the show. A which offers menswear, children’s wear, CH Carolina Herrera boutique opens in Suria accessories as well as womenswear. This KLCC this month. month, a 1,200 sq ft CH Carolina Herrera boutique will open in Suria KLCC in Kuala Lumpur, carrying women´s ready- to-wear collections and accessories. The brand plans to expand into Thailand next.

“Every luxury brand is expanding and we have to be careful not to become a temporary trend,” Herrera notes. “It’s important to be special and different, keeping our individuality and originality so people continue to feel attracted to the brand. It’s about picking the right markets that are ready for us and having the right people to run things. It’s not easy; fashion is always a challenge.”

The brand’s robust growth owes much to its parent company Puig, a third- generation family-owned fashion and

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