Carolina Herrera

Carolina Herrera, born in Caracas, showed her first collection in New York in 1981 and built the house on eveningwear and the crisp white shirt she wore as a uniform. She stepped back from design in 2018, and Wes Gordon has directed the label since, keeping the volume and the colour while widening what it sells. The house is a dressmaker before it is a leather-goods maker, and the bags follow from that: small, formal, and made for an evening more often than for carrying things. Expect structured minaudières and clutches, satin and jacquard alongside calf, bows and grosgrain used as fastenings, and the Herrera initials cast into hardware. Nothing here has been matched to a model line, so the condition of the fabric and the closure is what separates listings. Evening fabrics mark easily and rarely recover.