Last Night, Carolina Herrera’s Wes Gordon and Cabana’s Martina Mondadori Sartogo Invited Guests to Dine Off Their New Tableware Collaboration

The ever-congenial Wes Gordon has been at Carolina Herrera for just over a year now, and you could say he’s at home. Yet as a Central Saint Martin’s alumnus he’s also very at home in London, and last night he welcomed his friends to a dinner at the spectacular Wallace Collection with a fatigue-fighting vodka shot. “You are THE best host, Wes,” declared co-host Martina Mondadori Sartogo, founder of Cabana, dressed in a primary-bright floral Herrera that nodded to Herrera’s Venezuelan side. The creatives found each other as friends and collaborators through Instagram and a mutual appreciation of their entertaining élan.

Set in a Georgian square behind the bustle of Oxford Street, The Wallace Collection is home to a national collection of 18th and 19th-century European works, and the opulent, deep blue silk walls of the Dutch galleries provided the ideal backdrop for the evening. As Gordon’s collections are exemplifying Herrera past and Herrera future, old and new united last night with a visually arresting combination of Dutch Masters meeting masterful tabletops. These came laden with bright dahlias and of course the Cabana x Carolina Herrera Tabletop Collection- artfully mismatched and laid before us.

“Far too beautiful to eat off,” murmured many a guest, that included a mix of American friends and Londoners such as Hayley and Berry Bloomingdale, Gabriella Windsor, and Tatiana Santo Domingo. Vogue’s Hamish Bowles gave excellent commentary on the galleries, whilst India Hicks in a bright yellow Carolina Herrera silk dress gave full Bahamian charm with her sunny anecdotes.

The tables were dressed by Sartogo and Gordon and featured key pieces from the collection including “Carolina” tablecloths with colorful fringes, “Josefina” plates with hand-painted floral Iznik-inspired patterns, and Murano glassware in electric shades of yellow and orange. Thirty-two-year-old Gordon loved for the formality of the set up compared to the relaxed entertaining style he adopts on weekends in Connecticut. “This is a collection that is so youthful and fresh,” says Mondadori Sartogo. “It’s a way of entertaining for a new generation.” The grandeur was offset by family-style antipasti, followed by roasted John Dory and mashed potatoes aligot.

As carriages were called, guests left with a rosier glow than the surrounding Fragonards’.