Ms. Herrera cited “women of the late 1950’s like Claudia Cardinale in “The Pink Panther” and Jeanne Moreau in “Les Liaisons Dangereuses…..somewhere between Rome and Paris in the late 50’s when couture and Avant Garde met for the first time” as inspiration for her collection. She worked within a color palette of rust, turquoise, opera red, and greige tempered with neutral accents of black and chocolate brown and offered up swirl prints and florals. The offerings ran the gamut of a shrunken rust double face wool ¾ sleeve jacket worn with a rust plaid wool bias appliqué skirt to a long full gown with a violet silk corseted top and multi color floral print evening skirt with pocket detail, and included tweed day dresses (one had mink sleeves), a turquoise Prince of Wales bias cut skirt suit, a chocolate broadtail coat with turquoise swirl print cotton lining, a line up of cocktail dresses in satin and lace, chiffon, and taffeta, and heavily embroidered cocktail dresses that she felt could “compete with any evening gown”. Alas, the collection was a bit of a disappointment to me, considering that her last several (especially spring 2006) were far more inspired and modern. The prints looked too busy and the colors were out of sync with the season, and in a season strong on amazing hand knits and noteworthy coats (pointing to a renewed love affair with design and craft and a decided move away from over the top, obvious symbols of luxury), she just missed the mark. I guess you can’t always be on top of your form.

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