{"id":82717,"date":"2023-10-28T12:56:33","date_gmt":"2023-10-28T12:56:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/?post_type=articles&p=82717"},"modified":"2024-03-19T23:52:37","modified_gmt":"2024-03-19T23:52:37","slug":"new-york-city-ballet-costumes-carolina-herrera-wes-gordon","status":"publish","type":"articles","link":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/articles\/new-york-city-ballet-costumes-carolina-herrera-wes-gordon\/","title":{"rendered":"New York City Ballet: Dream Team"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Wes Gordon fits a new costume design for George\u00a0Balanchine\u2019s Who Cares?<\/em> on Tiler Peck, 2023. Photo Credit: Erin Baiano.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The list of designer collaborators for New York City Ballet\u2019s annual Fall Fashion Gala reads like the ultimate fashion Rolodex. Carolina Herrera, Raf Simons, Dries Van Noten, Virgil Abloh, and Sarah Burton are just a few of the 30 names who have designed costumes for the annual celebration of dance and fashion over the past 12 years and whose work is celebrated in a new Rizzoli monograph titled <\/span>New York City Ballet:<\/em> Choreography & Couture.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Wes Gordon\u2019s sketches for his\u00a0new costume designs, 2023. Photo Credit: Erin Baiano.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This month, as part of the company\u2019s yearlong 75th anniversary celebration, current Carolina Herrera creative director Wes Gordon has lent his hand to the company\u2019s costume shop for a special edition of the fall gala to celebrate NYCB\u2019s co-founding choreographers George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins, fashion, and New York City.<\/p>\n

“I love dance and I love New York.” \u2014 Wes Gordon<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cI love dance and I love New York,\u201d says Gordon. \u201cI\u2019m so proud to be a New Yorker and to show during New York Fashion Week. New York City Ballet is such a crucial part of our cultural community, so to be a part of its anniversary celebration is really an honor.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Marc Happel and Wes\u00a0Gordon discussing fabric options, 2023. Photo Credit: Erin Baiano.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Balletomane and fashionista Sarah Jessica Parker, a vice chair of the NYCB Board of Directors, premiered the Fall Fashion Gala in 2012 with an evening dedicated to Valentino Garavani. But the relationship between dance and fashion at NYCB goes much further back: Balenchine\u2019s daily walks past the Van Cleef & Arpels window displays on Fifth Avenue famously inspired one his most iconic works, Jewels<\/em>, a 1967 ballet in three acts featuring dancers dressed as emeralds, rubies, and diamonds.<\/p>\n

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Judith Fugate and Robert La\u00a0Fosse performing George Balanchine\u2019s Who Cares?<\/em> in the\u00a0original costumes by Karinska, 1989. Photo Credit: Paul Kolnik.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For the gala performance on October 5, Gordon designed new costumes for another of Balanchine\u2019s beloved ballets, Who Cares?<\/em>, a 1970 work in which George Gershwin standards like \u201cI Got Rhythm\u201d and \u201cEmbraceable You\u201d serve as the basis for syncopated group dances and balmy, romantic duets.<\/p>\n

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Miriam Miller in Carolina Herrera, 2014. Photo \u00a9 Pari Dukovic.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Past editions of the Fall Fashion Gala have featured new commissions from up-and-coming choreographers, and NYCB\u2019s director of costumes Marc Happel pretty much gave designers working on those shows carte blanche. Some of their designs were pretty unconventional, like Zac Posen\u2019s tutus cantilevered at surprising angles, Christopher John Rogers\u2019s voluminous neon forms, or Palomo Spain designer Alejandro G\u00f3mez Palomo\u2019s deconstructed tailoring covered in 800,000 Swarovski crystals.<\/p>\n

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Carolina Herrera\u2019s costume design sketch, 2014. Image courtesy of Carolina Herrera.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The gala performance of an excerpt Who Cares?<\/em> marks the first time the company asked a designer to redesign the costumes for an existing Balanchine masterpiece and with that came certain parameters from the trust that oversees the legendary choreographer\u2019s creative legacy. Karinska, the Oscar-winning costume designer who led NYCB\u2019s costume shop from 1964-1977, created the work\u2019s original designs.<\/p>\n

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Mimi Staker in Zac Posen, 2019. Photo \u00a9 Pari Dukovic.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Her ballet bodices with layered short skirts worn by the female principal dancers, were given a refresh by Tony Award-winning production and costume designer Santo Loquasto in 2013. \u201cIt was about adhering to the original colors, silhouettes, and shapes, but with a modern twist,\u201d says Gordon of his design process.<\/p>\n

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Christopher Grant in Alejandro G\u00f3mez Palomo for Palomo Spain, 2022. Photo \u00a9 Pari Dukovic.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Happel\u2019s assessment: \u201cThe costumes very much have Wes\u2019s stamp of elegant simplicity, with really beautiful details.\u201d Gordon has extended the classic Who Cares?<\/em> silhouette in a dance dress largely made from stretch poly crepe in dreamy shades of blue, pale, peachy pink, and a darker fuchsia. His designs feature a longer skirt with opaque panels that open to reveal godets of pleated tulle when the dancer spins. They also feature delicate sequin and paillette embroidery by Finesse, an Indian embroidery atelier that Carolina Herrera herself introduced Happel to when she collaborated with NYCB on the 2014 gala.<\/p>\n

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Mimi Staker in Sarah Burton for Alexander McQueen, 2014. Photo \u00a9 Pari Dukovic.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cI\u2019m always hoping that all these speeding trains will end up at the station at the same time.\u201d \u2014 Marc Happel<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Creating such intricate costumes is, itself, an impressive feat of stagecraft. \u201cIt\u2019s all happening in different places: The pleating is done here in New York, the embroidery is happening in Mumbai, and then the actual dresses are being cut out and constructed here in our costume shop,\u201d says Happel. \u201cI\u2019m always hoping that all these speeding trains will end up at the station at the same time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read GRAZIA USA<\/em>\u2019s Fall Issue<\/a> featuring cover star Ziwe\u00a0Fumudoh<\/a>:<\/strong><\/h4>\n
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