Wes Gordon, creative director at Carolina Herrera, has made his mark on the red carpet | Canada Voices

Although it has been seven years since Wes Gordon was appointed creative director at Carolina Herrera, he has wasted no time making his bold, multicoloured mark on the fashion world, and the red carpet. Recently crowned with a Red Carpet Visionary Award by Women’s Wear Daily, his dresses for the Spanish fashion house have been worn by numerous stars at film openings and award ceremonies.

The benefits of wearing Carolina Herrera are unmistakable: It signals a taste for refined, timeless looks that avoid chaotic, over-the-top designs. At the 2025 Golden Globes, Kate Hudson’s strapless navy-blue ball gown with floral embroidery earned her spots on best-dressed lists from both Vogue and a usually scathing set of TikTok fashion critics. Similarly, Gordon’s look for Cynthia Erivo at the 2024 Red Sea International Film Festival – drawing inspiration from his mother’s doll collection – stole the spotlight, echoing the acid-green palette of Wicked, for which Erivo is up for an Oscar.

Since his 2019 resort collection – Gordon’s debut as design lead – he has delivered a refreshing mix of garden-party inspiration, liberally selecting colourful hues fuelled by his love of floriculture. For what is now considered Gordon’s landmark collection, the Chicago-born designer created dresses adorned with flower patterns. These designs showcased an undeniable botanical influence, featuring bright red poppies, golden mimosa, lapis and lemon-coloured wisteria.

The clothes weren’t flashy, showy or overtly sensual, yet they stood out from the rest of the year’s runway shows. Gordon’s fabric choices contrasted the minimalist palettes and prints that dominated racks at Marc Jacobs, Oscar de la Renta and Mugler.

The designer has since continued to challenge Miranda Priestly’s iconic line from The Devil Wears Prada − ”Florals? For spring? Groundbreaking!” (sarcastically delivered by Meryl Streep) – and used his runways to oppose the notion that verdant prints are anything less than innovative.

Carolina Herrera’s latest 2025 fall ready-to-wear-signals that Gordon’s “bouquet era” is far from over. On the runway at New York Fashion Week, Herrera’s fresh-faced models flaunted waist-cinching looks with sashes adorned with handmade silk rosettes, paired with mini-rosette evening bags. A few key outfits in the collection accessorized with oversized floral brooches. It sent a clear message to any designer daring enough to create in uncertain times: When the fashion world dims low, Gordon beams high.

“It’s been this idea of a beacon of beauty and optimism and colour and joyful, passionate clothing since day one,” Gordon, 38, says of his strategy to avoid the litany of normcore, influencer-laden or “mob wife” trends popular on social-media feeds.

Instead of TikTok, the creative director seeks out gardens and fields to motivate his mood boards. “In the time I’ve been at Herrera, I don’t think we’ve used a single sad colour … a dusty grey, beige or chalky colour. Everything’s very pigment-rich and alive,” he says.

Not that Gordon has ruled out classics such as black, grey and checks altogether. When he does embrace them, the results capture the attention of headline-making stars. Selena Gomez chose a Carolina Herrera black midi dress for her appearance at the premiere of Emilia Perez at the American French Film Festival in November. Taylor Swift is an avid fan, wearing a number of Carolina Herrera pieces for her US$2-billion dollar grossing Eras Tour as well as choosing Gordon’s designs off-stage. When Swift chose a Gordon-designed check-pattern coat for a casual night out in New York, the item reportedly sold out hours after a single photo was posted online.

Years before joining Herrera, Gordon had his own eponymous line. His big breakthrough in fashion came in November, 2012, when Michelle Obama wore a metallic houndstooth jacket he designed during an appearance at the Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards. That moment was, no doubt, one of the reasons Gordon was handpicked by Carolina Herrera to take over as creative director of her house at just 31.

Gordon’s rise to prominence was no accident. He spent his formative fashion years learning the ropes at the prestigious Central Saint Martins in London. He also interned for Oscar de la Renta and worked in Tom Ford’s atelier before flourishing at Herrera.

Herrera’s past seasons are proof of Gordon’s broad skillset as well as his obsession with saturation: from the brand’s fall 2024 collection, which featured a blush peony gown with a bustle, to the house’s signature orchid-blue trumpet gown for spring 2025. Gordon’s blossom-imbued muses are not going anywhere any time soon. “A Herrera woman is in head-to-toe hot pink when everyone else on the sidewalk is in oatmeal,” explains Gordon. “There’s a seasonal nuance which changes a little bit but that intrinsic, joyful part remains unchanged.”

What has changed is the talent contributing to Gordon’s designs. His 2025 resort collection was infused with an extra dose of dopamine through collaborations with embroidery artisans Virginia Verónica Arce and María de los Ángeles Licona San Juan, as well as jewellery designers Araceli Nibra Matadamas and Jacqueline España.

These four collaborators provided deeper context for Gordon’s collection, titled A Love Letter to Mexico, which was presented at the Diego Rivera Anahuacalli Museum in November (and live-streamed with a buy-now option). The museum, dedicated to Rivera’s work and home to more than 2,000 pre-Colombian Mesoamerican figurines, provided a rich backdrop for Gordon’s designs, which referenced its history without succumbing to nostalgia.

This is on par with the wishes of the celebrated Venezuelan-American matriarch of the brand, 86-year-old Herrera. She remains the house’s global brand ambassador and is a fixture at the front row of every show, offering guidance to Gordon when he needs it.

During her 37-year tenure at the helm of the house − now owned by the Spanish beauty and fashion company PUIG – Herrera has frequently made two important statements to journalists: “I don’t believe in fashion victims” and “I design for the present, I think of the future, but I love the past.” These two philosophies have influenced Gordon, whose designs reflect his own vision and his predecessor’s penchant for exploring her roots.

“I find any conversation you have with people right now, all roads lead back to Mexico City, whether you’re talking about food or architecture or art or design or film,” Gordon says, listing off restaurants such as Entremar, the city’s many flower markets and the National Museum of Anthropology, which have added to his love of Mexican culture.

Of course, celebrity clients are key to catapulting his vision, whether they choose to wear his gowns on the red carpet or his retro-chic suiting and dresses for day. Rather than other designers, Gordon’s love of movies – and the costume visionaries who help bring them to life – are what he points to as a constant inspiration.

Naming costumer Ann Roth (who won Oscars for her work on The English Patient and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom) as an early influence, Gordon says his taste in clothing has been educated by both old and new Hollywood alike. “I grew up with a dad who loved films, so I was always exposed to films of the thirties, forties and fifties, all the way through to modern films,” he says. “I like the idea that clothes can be powerful and carry meaning and be used to character storytelling.”

The palette for his fall 2025 collection was drawn from one of his favourite paintings, Rhythm Color by Ukrainian-born French artist and designer Sonia Delaunay. Another significant influence came from the 1979 comedy Being There. The main character in the movie, called Chance, is a gardener who is unexpectedly dismissed from his job and forced to search for an identity beyond plant life. Gordon wrote about the connection between his clothing and Chance in the show’s notes, emphasizing how we all “tend to our wardrobes the way he would tend to his garden – meticulously, with thoughtful care.”

That big film-buff energy has helped Gordon dress bold-faced names such as Oscar nominees like Demi Moore, who made waves by wearing a mock-neck top with a wide-leg pant and veiled pillbox from the pre-fall 2024 collection for a premiere event for Feud: Capote Vs. The Swans in Los Angeles. Other all-star Carolina Herrera moments were made at the Met Gala. Karlie Kloss’s 25-yard-long crimson silk dress made headlines in 2021 and Shakira’s sleek column red dress with dramatic rose-inspired cape did the same in 2024.

“Women who are entertainers – whether they’re dancers, actors or singers – have an awareness of their body that’s remarkable. Every movement, every millimetre of fabric – they’re aware of,” he says. “I’ve worked with amazing women who have incredible style and it’s tapping into their uniqueness and their personality that allows the dress to become so much more. It becomes their superhero cape.”

These days, an ill-fitting gown or an inauthentic look can quickly make a star into meme that won’t go away. Gordon says he feels for his clients in this social-media age, so he brings that sense of empathy to his designs. His dresses never feel too complex, confusing or contrary to who they are.

“These stars are going out there with a lot of critical eyes judging them,” he says. “They want to feel beautiful, empowered, confident. At Herrera, it’s not about reinventing the wheel, it’s not science experiments. We’re just committed to making something that makes you feel gorgeous.”

For Gordon, fashion narratives are actually most exhilarating when he encounters them outside of Hollywood circles. “When I see a woman at a party or on the sidewalk wearing a piece we designed, that, to me, is the most exciting story,” he says. “Knowing that in a sea of a million options, she fell in love with that one piece and took it home is what I love most.”