NYFW: Teyana Taylor, Kelsea Ballerini and Louisa Jacobson at LaQuan Smith, Carolina Herrera and Jason Wu

American fashion is making an excellent case for its presence on upcoming red carpets, judging by some of the high-profile shows debuting for Fall/Winter 2023 in New York this week. Jason Wu’s elegant presentation in a theater space at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum was among the season’s outstanding examples, a sublime blend of tailoring and romance told via Wu’s restrained, confident sensibilities.

“In a day when you see much larger houses dominating the red carpet, I’m really proud of the fact that actresses choose to work with me and wear my designs,” Wu (who most recently dressed Viola Davis for the Golden Globes and Niecy Nash for the Critics Choice Awards) told The Hollywood Reporter following the show. “The red carpet has become such a business, but we believe in genuine relationships and friendships. Look at Niecy; she came to my very first fashion show 15 years ago. And her performance in Dahmer was amazing, also because people think of her as a comedian. I was so happy to work with her [for Critics Choice]. She looked beautiful, and she called me after the show; things like that are what make it worth it for me.”

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Many designs in Wu’s latest collection would land actresses on an awards show best-dressed list, starting with the black silk-faille ballgown detailed with a touch of shredded tulle along the strapless neckline, the icy bias-cut silk gown worn under a full-length black tuxedo coat, and a grouping of sheer gowns embellished with elegant lace or beading. “I would wear absolutely every one of those pieces,” said Louisa Jacobson, a co-star of HBO’s The Gilded Age, on the front row alongside Huma Abedin, Olivia Palermo and Sophie Thatcher. “It’s hard to choose a favorite, but I did love the strapless red corseted gown, which was just stunning.”

That red draped gown and another in gold velvet, as well as a high-neck black jersey gown with ruched detailing, exuded an old-Hollywood glamour that was not incidental. “Marlene Dietrich was a huge influence on this collection,” Wu explained, calling himself a “classic-film nerd” who discovered stylish movies like Rear Window when he first moved from Taiwan to Canada at the age of 10. “It’s how I learned English. We didn’t have those films readily available in Taiwan, so my mom would go to Blockbuster, and I wanted only films with the best fashion. It became a very important part of my DNA.”

Beyond those glamorous gowns, Wu also explored modern ideas of tailoring, starting with a beautiful sculpted jacket that kicked off the show, as well as a red double-breasted jacket worn over a nude organza dress and great takes on black wide-legged trousers, all of which felt perfect for a show taking place at an iconic New York location. “I wanted this to be more than a fashion show; I wanted this to be a performance,” Wu said of choosing the Guggenheim’s theater space. “In New York, we don’t always receive a lot of credit for craftsmanship, but we have amazing talent here. That’s also why I wanted the girls to go much slower this time, so you could see everything up close and really notice the details, and know that these clothes were made in New York.”

Roughly 30 blocks south of the Guggenheim, Wes Gordon chose another New York icon, The Plaza Hotel, where he also showed last season, to debut his Fall/Winter collection for Carolina Herrera. Movies like Corsage, which captured an Un Certain Regard trophy for star Vicky Krieps at Cannes last May, continue to feed the public’s fascination with Empress Elisabeth of Austria, also known as Sisi, and she influenced Gordon this season as well. “What I love about Imperial Austria and Hapsburg and Sisi is that you get a combination of military discipline with the opulence, which you don’t find in Imperial France or other dynasties,” he explained to THR after the show. “Because you have this military family, there’s a discipline that’s applied to everything, and I think that’s very much a formula for Herrera as well. Elegance is always a given, but it’s about restraint mixed with opulence, and in fittings I found myself removing and removing to get to what felt right.”

That attention to detail indeed resulted in looks that felt opulent, yet never overtly so, starting with the lush beading that adorned boucle suits and silk dresses, as well as the botanical floral prints used to create gowns and dresses that put an accent on the fullness of their skirts, often due to the many layers of tulle peeking out from underneath. “I’ve always been an old soul, and I’m so lucky to work at a house like Herrera, which has an amazing history and an amazing atelier,” Gordon said. “So it’s not just about the embellishments, but also the actual textiles, because we can access a lot of fabrics that have become quite extinct on runways in the past 20 years due to the complexities [of creating them]. That’s how we could create the silk inspired by a 19th-century damask print I found, while many of the florals were based on a porcelain print, just working with these old-world techniques with the best fabric mills to create something that was a celebration of beauty and that promise of Herrera.”

On the front row, Kelsea Ballerini — wearing a strapless Herrera dress with heart-shaped details on the bodice, her nod to Valentine’s Day — said she loved the collection’s “classic and very feminine” vibe. As for Gordon’s lush gowns, Ballerini had her eye on one in particular: “I would die to wear that to next year’s Grammys,” she added.

Also notable: The show’s soundtrack kicked off with Dionne Warwick singing “I Say a Little Prayer,” written in 1967 by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, a detail that was noticed by audience members aware of Bacharach’s passing on Feb. 8. “That was unintentional — we already had that song in place days before, because I wanted to create this cinematic moment, and I love that song in My Best Friend’s Wedding,” Gordon noted, before adding that another song, “Georgia on My Mind,” was highly personal, as he and husband Paul Arnhold welcomed their second child, a daughter, a week prior to the show. “We named her Georgia, so adding that song was a bit of my own kind of indulgence, and a nod to her.”

Late Monday night, the trifecta of New York locales rounded out with LaQuan Smith’s presentation at the Rainbow Room atop Rockefeller Center, where Lil Nas X — a guest at several shows this month — slipped into his seat at the last minute, and the crowd also included Teyana Taylor and NFL star Stefon Diggs. “This season, I was really inspired by tuxedo suiting, and I loved the idea of high society, the elite of New York getting glamorous, drinking champagne and eating caviar; it just feels like a movie scene,” Smith noted to THR backstage after the show. “The Rainbow Room is nostalgic in itself, and I wanted to embody a collection that not only made women feel empowered, but also inspired to get dressed up and just have a great night.”

With recent red-carpet placements that include Sydney Sweeney, Lupita Nyong’o and Tracee Ellis Ross, as well as the looks he created for Lenny Kravitz and Khloe Kardashian for November’s CFDA Awards, Smith is enjoying the high-wattage attention that comes with such moments. “I think it’s a big role for me to have that presence, not only as a Black designer but also as an American designer,” he said. “As a native New Yorker, I grew up watching all these insane red-carpet moments, and I’d say to myself, I want to be a designer and have that moment. Having that representation on these Hollywood carpets is so imperative: pushing American luxury designers, pushing Black designers in a luxury space, and that’s where I feel like I’m contributing.”

Fringed detailing has been a big trend of the Fall/Winter collections, and Smith sent out one of the week’s best takes, a fully fringed black halter gown, while artfully constructed minidresses were designed to evoke thoughts of Bond girls, and vertical nude and black stripes on pieces like a square-neck, curve-hugging dress were created to fool the eye. “The way I design always starts with the body,” Smith explained. “I’m always looking at female form and the ways we can accentuate the body and enhance a woman’s curves. I like to play with lines and shapes and also play with illusion: Is she nude, is she naked? And from there, creating plunging necklines carving out the body and zeroing in on a woman’s form and exploring all the ways we can enhance it.”

As for the presence of front-row A-listers like Nas and Julia Fox, who sported a gold mask at Smith’s show? “My demographic just wants to look great and be unapologetically sexy and confident,” he said. “My woman, my guy, they want to be the center of attention, and that’s what it’s all about, energy and attitude. Everyone I dress embodies that same idea, and for me, the feeling is mutual.”

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