Coming off the heels of a busy fall with Carolina Herrera’s first see now, buy now resort 2025 show and pop-up store in Mexico City, as well as a debut Frame collaboration, Wes Gordon looked to his youth to influence his playfully glam pre-fall 2025 collection.
During a preview, Gordon recalled playing with his mother’s 1950s and ‘60s childhood dolls, dressing them in homemade clothes originally knitted and stitched together by his mother and grandmother.
“I so fondly recall playing with them as a child, they were so lovingly cared for and preserved, and then I would play with them. I think it shaped a lot of my early kind of ideas about fashion. So for this season I wanted to revisit those clothes. I had my mother ship all the clothes here to the office,” he said, noting that a handful of his new looks were actual recreations of the homemade ones, like a bright red chunky knit tube dress with oversized matching cardigan, patent slingbacks and clutch — a playful, chic nod to those plastic doll boxes.
The look’s play on proportions spoke to Gordon’s overall sense of whipping retro nostalgia into modern fantasy, glamour and dress up with plenty of bow details (which looked great embellished onto a white mini that made for a standout Herrera bridal moment); easy shirtwaist dresses; girly silhouettes of full skirts with nipped waists; exaggerated rounded sleeve tops with slim tailored trousers, and ‘50s windowpane floral prints. His tweeds looked especially fresh in a floor-length day skirt, paired with a shrunken knit polo.
“Little things like buttons — [my mother and grandmother] would use a button that was available from a shop, so the proportion of it was quite big on the doll and I wanted to maintain those ratios,” he added of larger buttons on the chic tailored lady jackets and the custom enamel button jewels. Ditto in eveningwear, as in a color-blocked pink, high-low ballgown and bubblegum-hued strapless column with large back bow — channeling life-size ’50s Barbie.
Nothing was too over the top or exaggerated, and evoked the signature Herrera codes of joy, optimism and feminine flair Gordon continues to push forward across luxury day and eveningwear.
