The designer is waving goodbye to the runway and hello to a new job. Whatever you do, don’t use the word retirement.
On Monday, Carolina Herrera will step out after her show at the Museum of Modern Art to wave to her audience as she has for the last 37 years. She will be, as usual, impeccably coiffed and composed, most likely in a white shirt and dark skirt with glowing white pearls in her ears. As usual, her husband, Reinaldo, will be in the audience, along with their daughters, Patricia and Carolina Jr.
But her daughters from her first marriage, Mercedes and Ana Luisa, will also be there. So will Bianca Jagger, who was at her first show in 1981. So will her old friend Calvin Klein. So will 25 of the men and women from her sample room, clad in their white coats. And so will Wes Gordon, a 31-year-old who has been her creative consultant for the last 11 months. Because with that wave, Mrs. Herrera, as she is known to pretty much everyone, is also waving goodbye to the runway.
As of Feb. 13 she is taking a new job in her company as global brand ambassador, and Mr. Gordon is becoming creative director.
“Just don’t say I am retiring,” the 79-year-old said with a dismissive wave. She was sitting on a chocolate-and-cream striped silk settee in her chocolate-and-cream striped domain on the 17th floor of a building in the garment district with view of the Empire State Building. “I am not retiring! I am moving forward.”
She chose her new title. She is going to proselytize at store events worldwide. She is going to leverage her living legend status — what Emilie Rubinfeld, the president of the brand, calls “the Carolina effect” — to the benefit of her company. She is going to spend more time at home with her husband, 12 grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.
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