Chic Herrera models 'attainable' perfection

BAL HARBOUR, Fla. --- At a party in an upscale mall, rich women and girls in cocktail dresses cluster around the most chic of them all: Carolina Herrera.

Ms. Herrera, dressed in one of her white shirts and full skirts with matching heels, poses for photographs like a pro for hours. She smiles and chats and does interviews with the media.

"Darling, I have been doing this for 28 years, so I suppose that if they don't know by now, after 28 years, then I have been doing something wrong," she said. "If they don't know about me, maybe I shouldn't be here."

She is glamorous, of course. But to these women, she's something more.

"She's attainable," said Maria Tremols-Orbay. "She is a lady you can relate to."

The 70-year-old Ms. Herrera does have a warm, easy laugh, but her perfectionist reputation seems warranted: You can see it in the way she fluffs the brown and cream striped pillows in her shop before cameras come in to film. Or in the ladylike crossing of her legs as she sits on a loveseat, making sure her knees are covered.

This isn't something she does just for show; it's how Ms. Herrera seems to live. Passers-by in front of her New York office building see her jetting in and out in her perfectly pressed shirts, never with a hair out of place.

When she received the Council of Fashion Designers of America lifetime achievement award last year, her friend Calvin Klein recalled a European vacation he took with Ms. Herrera and her husband, Ronaldo. No matter what they were doing, he said, she was always the best-dressed person in the room -- and she has always run with a stylish crowd.

She says she doesn't think about perfection.

"You cannot base your life, every morning waking up and say I have to be perfect. What is this? Life is something else and I have to do some other things too," she said.

The Venezuelan-born Ms. Herrera had no formal fashion training. She started her business in 1980, when all her four children had grown up and a friend, then-Vogue Editor Diana Vreeland, encouraged her to do a collection.

"There is a time in the life of everyone I think ... that you want to try something in your life. And I thought I wanted to get involved in fashion," she said. "I had never done anything professionally. And I thought that was the time to do it."

Her success lies in knowing exactly what women want or need in their wardrobe. That is in part the result of her affluent childhood in Venezuela.

"The reason why she's so successful is because she is the rich girl who actually made a real label," Juan Carlos Cajigas, a wardrobe stylist and personal shopper, said as he nibbled on hors d'oeuvres at the opening party for her new Carolina Herrera New York boutique at Bal Harbour Shops.

Ms. Herrera, though, also gives credit to her team. One of them quickly reaches for the eyeglasses in her lap as she plays with a puppy. Another stresses the need not to crowd her.

"You have to know how to delegate and know what you can do and what you cannot do. I cannot drape. I mean I cannot cut patterns. But I know exactly what I want and where the shoulder should be and where the seams should be," she said. "And it's the eye you have to have for the colors, to mix colors, or proportions ... It was born in me. Because I didn't go to fashion school."

Ms. Herrera said she didn't grow up thinking about fashion. "I was thinking about my horses and my dogs and my tennis and all that."

"I have been brought up with a lot of discipline and I have three sisters and we were brought up in a very disciplined way ... and that helps," she said.

Her brand is now a part of her identity, and it has grown into a family business. Her daughter Carolina works with her on the fragrances and designs the Herrera children's and lifestyle collections. Her family seems very close to her, calling her throughout the day on her cell phone. She tells anyone who will listen that she has 12 grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

Her advice for women who strive to be chic?

"Well, I would tell them to have a skirt. I love skirts more than trousers. And a white blouse, a sweater, a shawl. Don't forget an evening gown, even if you hang it in your closet just to look at it," she said.