Mrs.H Celebrates 35 Years

Brides Editor in Chief Keija Minor sits down with the fashion Doyenne three and a half decades after she took the industry

- Strom

The year was 1981. Reagan was president, Raiders of the Lost Ark owned the box office, and Diana Ross and Lionel Richie were on top with “Endless Love.” It was also the year that Maria Carolina Josefina Pacanins y Nino Herrera presented her first prêt-à-porter collection at the Metropolitan Club in Manhattan. With good friends Bianca Jagger, Andy Warhol, and Diana Vreeland in the front row and fashion giant Bill Blass (also a friend) weighing in on casting, she sent a series of evening gowns down the runway. While she had no formal training, just an impeccable vision—she learned how to sew by making clothes for her dolls in Caracas, Venezuela, where she grew up—the collection was an instant hit. Careermaking department stores like Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman placed orders on the spot. “It was so glamorous, with a live band playing Cole Porter songs,” she says, now elegantly perched in a side chair in her sun- filled corner office in Manhattan’s Garment District.