Sculptural Tailoring Meets Women Artists at Carolina Herrera Fall 2026

Wes Gordon reframed Carolina Herrera’s codes through an art-world lens, sending Amy Sherald, Ming Smith, Anh Duong and a cast of gallerists and sculptors down a mid-February New York Fashion Week runway that favored sculptural tailoring, confident volume and playful details. The takeaway for wardrobes is literal: sculpted jackets and puffed silhouettes meet pailettes, hand-embroidered crystal and animal prints that read as gallery-appropriate eveningwear and smart, modern suiting for openings and dinners.

Gordon framed the show as a chorus of real women from the arts. “This collection really began with some people I admire. A community of women artists, muses, gallerists, curators, collectors whose work I’ve followed and learned from over time—women who shape culture,” he said in the brand video that accompanied the presentation. He also described a research thread that began with Peggy Guggenheim’s personal style. “When I was researching and looking at imagery for this collection, I really went into a deep dive on Peggy Guggenheim and her personal style—this creative soul that came through her sartorial expression,” he said on a video call, adding, “They all have very different styles, and I wanted them in the show because of who they are.”

The cast was an explicit statement: photographer Ming Smith arrived cocooned in a leopard jacquard coat; painter Amy Sherald and gallerist Hannah Traore wore variations of a smart black strapless gown each pinned with a gold Calla lily brooch; Anh Duong walked in a shimmering dress fringed with pailettes; Eliza Douglas layered a pailettes-textured jacket over black chiffon and denim; sculptor Rachel Feinstein wore a lily-printed dress while her daughter, identified by multiple outlets as Flora Currin though one caption used Flora Feinstein, donned a leopard-printed turtleneck and a classic A-line skirt.

The room itself leaned gallery-like, anchored by hand-painted geometric murals by Sarah Oliphant and scenography that positioned the clothes as curated objects. The silhouettes were variously sculpted or puffed, with a palette that popped with flashes of red and glints of hand-embroidered crystal. Knit animal-print skirt suits, sequins and shiny jacquards alternated with cheeky shoe-print silk separates, the latter noted by Harper’s Bazaar as nodding to the shape of the Good Girl perfume bottle.

This season nodded to Carolina Herrera’s longstanding ties to artists including Andy Warhol and Robert Mapplethorpe and to the house’s Women in the Arts program, active since 2022. With a Feb. 12, 2026 presentation during New York Fashion Week, Gordon made Herrera’s precision tailoring feel like a museum acquisition and a closet staple at once — structured enough for formal moments, textured and playful enough to carry a modern art‑world sensibility into everyday dressing. Expect these sculptural line and decorative touches to migrate from the runway into party wardrobes and gallery circuits this fall.