For Carolina Herrera creative director Wes Gordon turned the runway into a living portrait of women in the arts for Fall 2026, not as abstract muses but as collaborators.
Staged in the Meatpacking District, the show gathered painter Amy Sherald, photographer Ming Smith, artist Anh Duong, sculptor Rachel Feinstein and daughter Flora Currin, painter and model Eliza Douglas, and gallerist Hannah Traore who not only inspired the collection, they walked it.
The clothes imagined women creating and moving through the world with conviction. Exaggerated shoulders, cocoon coats, puff sleeve blazers, and streamlined pencil skirts delivered strength balanced by ease. The crisp Herrera button down became the artist’s relaxed but intentional smock in black and white. House codes sharpened the message.
Colour and print carried emotion with leopard jacquard appearing across tailoring, calla lily motifs blooming on brooches, and plum poppy florals floating across organza, while the Good Girl stiletto print marked the fragrance’s ten year anniversary with a note of wit from Gordon.
Evening wear arrived in paillette knits, luminous gold coats and dresses constructed from rectangular sequins, nodding to the meditative geometry of Agnes Martin. The show echoed the house’s Women in the Arts initiative, rooted in founder Carolina Herrera’s own story, when Diana Vreeland encouraged her to pursue design and that lineage of creative recognition continues today.
FW26 felt like a gathering of women who shape culture across disciplines and in Gordon’s hands, Herrera’s sculptural purity became a frame for their presence, reminding us that fashion, like art, moves with the women who wear it.
