High ‘drama’ at Herrera
THERE’S more high drama behind the scenes at Carolina Herrera after a failed coup to replace the fashion legend.
On the spiky heels of a blockbuster lawsuit filed by Herrera against Oscar de la Renta regarding
Laura Kim, her former designer who jumped ship to de la Renta — which revealed that Herrera’s own CEO, Francois Kress, had plotted to replace her with Kim — Herrera is now feuding with her vice president of design, Raffaele Ilardo.
As New York Fashion Week kicks off Thursday, a source says that “next on the chopping block at CH is the newly installed VP of design,” Ilardo. Things have become so bad that he has threatened to stop work on Herrera’s collection ahead of her show on Monday, we’re told.
One insider said, “Carolina angrily stormed out of a meeting with him this week . . . Things are getting very ugly,” but that Ilardo’s “fighting back” by “threatening to walk out.”
While both Kim and Kress are out — and the suit was settled in January — the source said, “Raffaele was brought in by Francois, and once Francois was terminated, it seems like Raffaele was just automatically going to be next.” The source added that Herrera “was heard yelling in the hallway, ‘I am the boss!’ [She fears] if the group that owns CH likes what he is doing, and if it is selling, they really don’t need her.”
Another fashion source added of the elegantly dressed Herrera’s fiery temper, “Carolina is one of the greatest performers of all time.”
Ilardo joined Herrera last year to replace her veteran creative director Hervé Pierre — whose own brand has taken off after he designed Melania
Trump’s inaugural gown. Ilardo also helped design Amal Clooney and Huma Abedin’s wedding gowns when he was head tailor at Oscar de la Renta.
Herrera said when Ilardo was hired, “He has a deep understanding of how to create perfectly made clothes.”
A spokeswoman for Herrera insisted there was no drama, commenting that “Mrs. Herrera is currently hard at work with her whole design team, including Raffaele, for the new collection.”