Once an avid devotee of the great couture houses, haute chic socialite Carolina Herrera has herself become New York's most sought after couturier.

From the ateliers of New York and Paris, a very elegant woman has emerged to create a stunning range of designs that equal those once made for her by the great couture houses. Carolina Herrera imbues her collections with the Latin feel for femininity, elegance and beauty that is her own personal trademark. "My look - The Carolina Herrera Look - is for the modern woman of today", says this Venezuelan beauty. "It is classic but in a modern way, at the same time it's very elegant with very simple lines".

Carolina, the socialite and wife of wealthy landowner Reinaldo Herrera belongs to an elite group of wealthy Latin American families. Once easily spotted visiting the great design houses of Paris, she is now herself contributing to the world of fashion with her 'Carolina Herrera Collection' and although she launched her first collection only 14 years ago, it would appear that Carolina was being unwittingly prepared for her professional destiny right from the start.

"I was brought up in Caracas and also in Europe. I never wanted to be a fashion designer, not even when I was a child - when you are a little girl everyday changes, no? One day you think you are going to be a great actress, the next day perhaps you are going to be an opera singer and on another day you are not going to be anything at all. But I do come from a family where all the women are very elegant and I think that helps one's eye. My grandmother, my mother, all my family in fact used to be dressed in Parisian couture. And when I was very young, thirteen or so I remember going with my grandmother to a Balenciaga show on one of our trips to Paris. I believe that for a fashion designer it is very important to be born with an eye for fashion, and I think that I liked [fashion] very much ever since I was a child".

The Venezuela of Carolina's childhood was marked by a strict upbringing exercised by a disciplinarian father who discouraged his daughters' attendance at school preferring to keep them at home to be educated by tutors and governesses in line with the centuries old family tradition.

"Venezuela was a very sophisticated country when I was growing up there", recalls Carolina "My family arrived in Venezuela four hundred years ago from Spain and France. I'm married to Reinaldo Herrera, who is the Marquis of Torrecassor, a Spanish name also and he too has come from a very old family. His family home was built in 1590 and we are still in the same house. It has always been in the family.

"I came from a very disciplined background. My father was one of the pioneers of aviation in Venezuela and he was the Governor of Caracas for ten years. He did not believe that girls should go away to school. He thought that they should stay in the house with a governess and tutors. My three sisters and I had a Hungarian governess for twenty-five years who taught us to speak English and French and all things you must learn".

It is difficult to imagine a more dramatic contrast than that between the gracious and refined life of Spanish colonial Caracas and the frenetic pace of New York. Even more at odds would seem to be the attitudes towards women in both places, and one can't help but wonder how Carolina has reconciled the tough, New York variety with her "latin" counterpart - beautiful, graceful and the man's prize possession.

"The role of women in New York is...well, they want to be like a man because they work and they are very active. The women I dress look very sensuous and like a woman. They are very much admired by the men without any vulgarity. Sometimes it is said that dress must be very sexy, and sexiness for some designers is to do it very tight - you see that the woman cannot even move in it. So I think that the women I dress are admired by men, they look very sexy and they also look like real women.

"The most difficult thing in the world is to produce a simple, wonderful little black dress, with beautiful pure lines. It's very easy when you see all those dresses that have ruffles and buttons and all sorts of details. It seems that they want to cover something that is not right. My clothes are very classic in the modern way, for the woman of today, but at the same time they are very sophisticated".

Carolina's precepts have successfully bridged the transitions between Venezuela and New York, between consumer and designer. Carrying herself with a grace reminiscent of the Spanish bullfighters, she has always been known as an arbiter of good taste and an exquisite dresser.

"I've been in New York, shuttling back and forth, since I was a child because my father and mother used to have a house here, as did my mother-in-law. It's like my second home. I've been in the New York "scene" all my life, so it's not new.

"I was always involved in fashion in a different way - I used to buy clothes from the designers! For ten years, from 1972 to 1982, I was always included in the Ten Best Dressed Women in the World. Because of that they all know you in the fashion scene already, and I have some very good friends involved in fashion who really pushed me, and said 'Why don't you try and do something different, something professional with a collection?' Basically, that's the way I started here in New York, and I stay here because I think it is becoming the capital of the world. Everybody wants to come and be successful in New York. It's like having a diplomatic passport, all the doors are opened to you if you are successful in New York".

The task of constantly producing new and exciting collections is an arduous one, and anyone in a creative capacity is arguably involved in the most difficult career of all. Unlike many designers, Carolina had no formal training, and along with the search for inspiration she had to confront the technical aspects of design. She employs a talented staff who sew and drape under her direction, many of whom have been with her from the start and she compares the atmosphere in her atelier to that of a large family.

"You know the inspiration for your designs are in everyday life", she says. "I'm designing for the nineties, not the eighteenth century, so it has to come from everyday life. I get inspiration from everywhere - when I go to the museum, to the opera where I get inspiration from something I hear, from people walking in the street, from girls dancing at the discotheque...

"Of the great couturiers, Balenciaga is perhaps my number one, but there's little inspiration in all of them. Chanel has been a great inspiration for most of the designers, but I really like Balenciaga, and Poret also. If you know a little bit of fashion history you can see that fashion is a repetition. It is simply all in making it look different, the way you put things together and the materials you use, because the ideas have been there forever".

Carolina's position as both a buyer and designer of couture has obviously lent her some helpful insights, not least because she is a woman in a field still heavily dominated by male designers.

"I think it has helped me a lot because I'm in a different position due to the fact that I'm a woman. I think I know what women want, so that's easier. And to have been growing up in a house where all the women are well-dressed, and the clothes so beautifully made inside and out, is a wonderful training. Living with something really well made...that's why my clothes are so well made and they look great. The most important thing for all my collections is that they have to fit to absolute perfection".

Investigation reveals that devotees of Herrera fashion include women such as Jacqueline Onassis, Nancy Reagan, Kathleen Turner and Caroline Kennedy, but Carolina refuses to name her famous clients herself. Her discretion is another legacy of the days spent as buyer rather than designer.

"I have customers from all over the world, but I never tell their names because I don't want to make any publicity from other people. [Designers] used to do it to me, without asking and I was always very annoyed and I'm certainly not going to do the same thing", she says defiantly. "I always say that if dresses can't sell themselves and you have to mention very important names to do so, then there must be something wrong with them. You know, many have to say 'such and such is buying my clothes' to see if the other one is going to buy it. When they used to tell me that 'so and so is buying that dress" I always used to change my mind and buy another one".

While on the subject of buying fashion it's impossible to resist asking what the couture houses thought when they discovered that one of their best customers was about to go into competition with them. Carolina bursts into laughter at the recollection.

"I think the reaction was, 'Oh, she's going to do it for one or two years and then she will get tired of it and come back to us'. They had no idea that I was very serious about it and that was the reaction of many, many people. They said, 'Well maybe she's doing it for a hobby for a year or two, and then it won't work anymore'. Now everybody is, I think, quite amazed. It has been very, very successful, and my great successes are the women who buy my clothes. The more they buy, the more successful I become".

Speaking with Carolina Herrera and listening to her enthuse about her success and her fast growing business, a particular question inevitably arises. Obviously she doesn't need to do this. You can't help thinking that women with Carolina's wealth and position are more likely to be found dabbling in popular philanthropy to fill their time.

"When you attempt something that you want to do and you become a success, it's very difficult to leave it on the sidelines. You want to do more and more. The more successful you are, the more you want to achieve.

And husband Reinaldo, how does he feel about his enterprising wife's flourishing couturier business? "He loves it! He's a great help. He's wonderful because he supports all my ideas and he is genuinely delighted - that's the best of all. You know, you can't do anything if someone in your house is against you, no? I couldn't have done it without him; he has supported me through all my terrible moments and all my good moments - the entire time".

The only drawback Carolina admits to is the strain of constantly appearing in the public eye and the inroads her career makes into time spent with her family.

"The creative part is what I love the most.

These other things which belong to the business side - the travelling, the personal appearances, the interviews, the television, things like that - I don't think I was educated for that because I'm a very private person and for me that's the most difficult thing in the world, to be so in the public eye. It's like an invasion of privacy. I know I have to do it because it's part of the business, but for me that's the most difficult of all. The element that I really enjoy is the creation of the collections, choosing materials and colours and mixing it all together. That is what I adore".

Mixing colours and materials is not the only thing at which Carolina excels. She also mixes her own perfume - really mixes it, unlike many designers who simply put their names on a bottle of scent.

"The perfume has been very successful. It's selling very well in London; it's one of the best sellers at Harrods and it's selling very well in Spain also and especially here in the United States.

"My perfume is very different, it's very unique. It is a very exotic fragrance and at the same time very elegant - it has a little bit of romance also. Men are always attracted by the scent. I have been wearing it for twelve years and I used to mix it myself. I was always asked, 'What are you wearing!?' In taxis for instance - a driver once said to me: 'Oh lady, what are you wearing? You make me so dizzy!!'

"All my clothes and my perfume; everything I do is very international. My fashion has to look well in Caracas, New York, Paris and Rome - otherwise it would be folkloric".

Carolina designs three collections a year apart from the flagship Carolina Herrera Collection. She has another called "C.H.", encompassing less expensive dresses, a bridal collection and a small debutante collection for young ladies from fourteen to eighteen. Her heritage of high chic, her elegance and her charm permeate all her designs.

"Sometimes beauty is not connected with elegance. People have always connected the beautiful and the elegant but I don't think that it is true, it doesn't necessarily work. You can see the most beautiful women in the world and they don't have to be elegant. What I like is when the dress is part of the woman. It shouldn't be that a woman enters the room and you see only the dress and don't notice the woman. It has to be a combination, a harmony between the two of them. The most important thing is that a woman feels well in it. If she feels well she moves well and that is what elegance is all about".