A typical runway show lasts eight minutes or so and consists of 35 to 40 outfits; models walk up and down a catwalk about the length of a city block; the audience is made up of three or four hundred guests. For his latest Carolina Herrera show, creative director Wes Gordon doubled the amount of looks, carpeted a 450-meter-long runway, and invited 1,500 guests. The backdrop for his parade of sumptuous ball gowns, carnation-embroidered dresses, and polka-dotted suits was none other than Madrid’s Plaza Mayor, the epicenter of the Spanish capital.

Carolina Herrera, of course, has deep Latin roots; Herrera herself is from Venezuela, and Puig, the brand’s parent company, is Spanish. Still, it was the first time since its founding, in 1981, that Carolina Herrera has held a main collection show o

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