Dallas’ Ten Best Dressed Women Swept Off Their Feet by Carolina Herrera’s Fashion Wonderboy

From now on, we will start referring to Carolina Herrera creative director Wes Gordon as an honorary Dallasite. Few designers have swept our city’s women off their feet more than Gordon, who was in town to serve as the featured designer for The Crystal Charity Ball’s Ten Best Dressed Women of Dallas Fashion Show and Luncheon.

Of course, the clothes had something to do with it: Gordon arrived mere days after showing his Spring 2020 collection in New York to acclaimed reviews. Not to mention, his Fall 2019 pieces were quickly snatched up by the ladies in attendance, including the Ten Best Dressed honorees themselves, who wore pieces from that collection for their runway debut.

Oh, and then there was the added bonus: Following the presentation of the Ten Best Dressed (Delilah Boyd, Lisa Cooley, Tiffany Divis, Jennifer Dix, Cate Ford, Cara French, Amy Hegi, Karla McKinley, Amy Prestidge, and Kimberly Whitman) and the Hall of Fame Honoree, Francie Moody-Dahlberg, the Resort 2020 collection took over the catwalk, making this the first time Carolina Herrera’s resort collection had ever been seen on a runway. Typically, the fashion house only presents a look-book of the collection, not a full runway spectacle.

Still, there was something more that added to the Carolina Herrera fever that afternoon. Perhaps, it was the fact that several of the women in attendance had met Gordon before.

Several years ago, when the designer was fresh out of design school and spearheading his own namesake line, Neiman Marcus flew him to town for a trunk show and an event held at the home of Pat McEvoy. The gorgeous and gracious McEvoy just so happens to be this year’s Crystal Charity Ball chairman. Call it a very fashionable full-circle moment. We have no doubt those who met him years ago were thrilled to see him back — this time all grown up and leading the creative charge at one of America’s most iconic fashion houses.

Gordon himself is as darling and cheery as they come. We were told ahead of time by Carolina Herrera’s exec team that Gordon loves to chat — and that proved true. He spent most of the luncheon portion of the event popping around to different tables chatting with the likes of Nancy Rogers, Tina Craig, Sue Gragg, Madison Isner, former First Lady Laura Bush, Nancy Dedman, Gene Jones, Charlotte Jones, and luncheon chairman Ola Fojtasek.

Neiman Marcus CEO Geoffroy van Raemdonck — another gent who is very much adored by the Dallas ladies-who-lunch crowd — was fresh back from New York Fashion Week and couldn’t help but admire the fashionable turn out. “I’m just back from New York Fashion week, and I have to say you all give them a run for their money,” he told the well-heeled crowd during his pre-runway remarks.

He then introduced two new front-row faces at Neiman Marcus: The retailer’s new president and chief merchandising officer, Lana Todorovich; and its new executive vice president, stores and retail experience, David Goubert, who were both seated with Emilie Rubinfeld, Carolina Herrera’s president, who was in town for the event from New York.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a Ten Best Dressed fashion show without an array of eye-popping jewels by Margot McKinney. In a new tradition that started three years ago, McKinney — the world’s master of fine pearls — dresses each of the Ten Best Dressed women in her beautiful baubles. This year, remarked van Raemdonck, McKinney was unable to join the luncheon from Australia (her home base). But by the awestruck looks on everyone’s faces as they ogled the jewels coming down the runway, Ms. McKinney was most certainly there in all her glittering spirit.

Van Raemdonck and his husband Alvise Orsini, a well-regarded international interior designer, have been close friends with Mrs. Herrera herself for a number of years, he told us. And he commended Gordon for continuing the fashion house’s legacy of dressing women in a mien that is all at once “confident, modern, and beautiful.”

With those three words, van Raemdonck perfectly summarized what The Crystal Charity Ball and its Ten Best Dressed Fashion Show and Luncheon are all about.

For the women who make up Dallas’ most storied philanthropic organization are not just interested in pretty clothes and hot-ticket events. Rather, they encapsulate what it means to be a modern power woman in every sense of the word. They are confident in their abilities, from leading impressive professional lives to raising millions of dollars for the city’s most deserving children’s charities. And, while their outward beauty is incontestable, it is their inner beauty that makes them stand out from the rest.