Backstage & more at Carolina Herrera FW13

Out of all of the shows I went too during New York Fashion Week, Carolina Herrera was definitely my favorite. The experience was an overwhelming one, both physically and emotionally, but in the best ways possible Monday morning I set a 5am alarm in order to make it from my Brooklyn apartment to the Lincoln Center Theatre for a 7am call time. It is a rarity to see me wake up that early without struggling, but for Carolina Herrera I managed to do it. Going through four check points to finally make it backstage, I found everyone surprisingly very welcoming, which is something I honestly did not expect. 

Backstage forty models, Carolina Herrera's dressers and regular employees, Essie's nail team, Moroccan Oil's hair team, MAC's makeup team, and numerous backstage reporters and photographers were hard at work. Crazy enough with all that was going on at a fashion show post blizzard at 7am Monday morning, everyone was having a pretty good time. Maybe it was the lively models that Herrera casted including young stars: Karlie Kloss, Lindsey Wixon, Cara Delevingne, Daphne Groeneveld, Jourdan Dunn, Hilary Rhoda and more. I witnessed Karlie's endless smiling, Cara's funny faces and her reading excerpts from Cosmo out loud, and Lindsey watching doe eyed laughing at them both. It was a great atmosphere and one that I had not experienced at most of the other shows. People were having fun and excited for the presentation.

The actual show is what had the most powerful affect on me. After listening in on an interview with Herrera backstage and sneaking my way into the center of the photography pitt, I witnessed poetry in motion. Beautiful classical music played as I saw the most elegant and sophisticated looks glide down the runway. Beautiful floral print gowns, fur trimmed skirts, luxurious velvets and classic 40's inspired feminine cuts. The collection was ornate and immaculate. I caught myself almost tearing in the middle of at all. I never imagined I would ever be this close to the beauty I admired in the pages of Vogue since I was a young teenager. Matter of fact, I never thought I would even be as close to the editor-in-chief and creative director of the publication, both seated in Herrera's front row. It was a show I will never forget, both with it's beauty and it's meaning.

Look out for more backstage and show photos on my tumblr.