My first memory and perhaps the only vivid one of the Dominican-born designer Oscar de la Renta was of him strutting down a runway with one of his models in tow, dressed in an ornate, sparkly pale pink number on Fashion TV. For long, I had been a hater of pink, sparkly things, but not this one — the dress had me hooked. And so did Oscar de la Renta. I began looking him up on Ask Jeeves (Google wasn’t popular back then) and learnt all that I could learn about him.
For those who cannot recall the designer’s works, he recently designed an ivory beaded-tulle dress for the Lebanese lawyer Amal Alamuddin who wedded George Clooney. But red carpet gowns and wedding dresses weren’t the only specialities of the prolific designer; the 82-year-old dressed everyone from first ladies, to Hollywood starlets. De la Renta’s career, which began in the 1950s, came to an end on Monday; he died due to complications from cancer. His dresses were known for feminine elegance, effervescent colours and exuberant numbers and he was the first American to design a couture collection in Paris since Main Rousseau Bocher.
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It took him around 10 years to catapult into stardom and he became prominent after dressing Jacqueline Kennedy and since then, he has dressed almost every First Lady in the U.S.: Nancy Reagan, Hillary Clinton and Laura Bush, and Michelle Obama. Some of his memorable creations include Sarah Jessica Parker’s black-and-white, floor-length gown with the designer’s name on the back in red, Lupita Nyong’o’s strapless polka-dot number, Hillary Clinton’s 1997 swearing-in ensemble in coral, and Laura Bush’s beaded inaugural gown in 2005. For an Indian connection, actress Sridevi picked a black, shiny Oscar de la Renta number for the IIFA awards this year.
In 1963, de la Renta famously said that he just wanted to make beautiful clothes, and I fully agree with him. While I cannot afford an Oscar de la Renta ensemble yet, I plan to pay my tribute to him by pinning one of his iconic designs to my Pinterest board tonight.
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(Photos credit: AP)