What does your space reveal about how you work?
Constant motion. I do 6 collections a year, and some have hundreds of pieces. So at any point in time I’m touching 3 collections. This floor, the Atelier of Herrera, is so cool because we’re in the Garment District and we have a thriving, working, beautiful atelier. There are pieces from every collection always, like, happening. There are things in production; there are things that are being done in sample stage, it’s just a lot of things going on at the same time, which I think is exactly how my head is.

What are the ideal conditions for you to create your best work?
I need to be in the moment, engaging with my hands, with my eyes. I love fittings, for example. I love being there looking at something concrete and figuring out how to make it better. I always like that task of thinking, looking at something that exists and trying to improve upon it.

Can you talk us through some pieces in the collection?
A lot of it’s still upstairs for where we’re doing fittings and show styling, but some things are already down here being altered. Let’s see if there’s anything fun. I’ll show you this. This jacket, I think, is an amazing jacket. So cool. It’s all over a field of yellow flowers, and then it has the polka-dot black-and-white bow flower corsage.

What’s really interesting is that when Herrera first launched and the first fragrance was black-and-white polka dots with a yellow border. So those 3 colours together are just scream Herrera to me, always. This print, I think, is so beautiful that we have in the collection. This is an upside-down dress so the ruffles don’t get smushed between now and the show.

Here we have this dress made from peach-colored organza, with the ruffles around the bottom. The way we achieved this ruffle is that there’s a really thin fishing line that’s put on the edge of the spiral-cut organza, and then it has a pearl marrow stitch so it holds this ruffle in place.

There are some interesting things over here: these incredible hand-crocheted flowers with the bugle bead embroidery in the centre. I like it because they have a very kind of pop-art Warhol feeling, and we’re doing things with the Warhol Foundation this season, so it’s a lot of fun stuff everywhere you look, and then a lot of it’s upstairs, so it’s kind of all over the place right now.

This dress featuring Andy Warhol’s image of Carolina Herrera is still a work in progress; it’s still all just pinned. But for this, we actually partnered with the Warhol Foundation to use the iconic silkscreen of Carolina, and I placed it on this dress.

We did a lot of experimentation with scale and placement and then fully rendered it in embroidery. I especially love her earring. Then, we pinned it on here in the fitting yesterday, but we’re going to be attaching this electric yellow fringe to the hem and then the black to the neck.

Over here is a piece we’re working on in collaboration with The New Yorker, which is so exciting. It’s an embroidery of the artwork that was actually the cover of The New Yorker on the day of Mrs Herrera’s first show.

What do you say has changed the most about your practice since you became creative director of Carolina Herrera?
Since I started at Herrera, which was 8 years ago, I think I’ve really found my own aesthetic and voice within the aesthetic and voice of this amazing brand and house, which is something that really happens with time and with total reverence for the actual brand that you’re working.

What were you thinking about when you began developing this collection? Were there any specific ideas or images that sparked your imagination?
For this collection, the starting point was not only Carolina Herrera’s first show in 1981, but the world of women at that time, and this embrace of beauty and glamour and femininity in a way that was all about power, too, and boldness and confidence. It’s really about just owning with pride who we are as a brand—a brand that loves clothes that women wear, a brand that loves women, a brand that wants people to feel beautiful and confident when they wear the pieces, and just really, like, putting an exclamation point after that.

What would you say is the biggest challenge you encountered with this collection?Well, it’s still not really finished until the show’s over, so I don’t want to jinx it! But I think there’s something about the fact that this is an anniversary collection of such an amazing brand. We’re showing in New York for Spring/Summer; we haven’t been here in a bit because we’ve been on the road. We did destination shows in Madrid, Mexico City, and Rio. So this collection is a love letter to New York and it’s a love letter to Herrera, both things that I love so much. So, I have a lot of pressure on myself to really deliver.

What about this collection are you most proud of?
I’m proud of the amazing people I got to work with on it and how much fun we’ve had together. That we’re having fun in stylings. That we’re having fun in the fittings. They’re joyful clothes, and the fact that everyone’s joyful working on them, I think, is really evidence of that.

How do you know when something is finished or good enough?
I have a tendency to keep working on something and keep going at something indefinitely, in the spirit that there is always more to be done. I guess the nature of this industry is that you’re always racing the clock, and there’s always a hard stop, there’s always a deadline. So it kind of saves me from myself in that sense.

But I definitely always see ways that I want to change something and make it better. So in answer to your question, I don’t really say it’s finished. It’s more like the clock and the calendar tell me I have to stop.

How do you define Carolina Herrera today?
I think it’s an unapologetic embrace of beauty and glamour, confidence, and optimism.