Designer Oscar de la Renta acknowledges the audience after his Fall 2014 collection show during Fashion Week in New York. Picture / AP Images
The passing of Oscar de la Renta has left a vacancy: couturier to America’s royalty, writes Alexander Fury. It's Oscar de la Renta's designs of fairytale evening dresses for glittering socialites and red carpet tromping that have attracted the loudest tributes following his death late on Monday.
His role in this area of fashion was, of course, important. It helped to cement de la Renta's name in the
general public consciousness, via gossip pages, television news coverage and Sex And The City episodes. Oscar de la Renta dressed Hollywood royalty and international aristocracy, leading ladies and First Ladies - most recently, Michelle Obama, who wore her first de la Renta just over a week ago.
Nevertheless, all of the above focuses attention on who the man dressed, rather than what he dressed them in. True, the instantly recognisable faces probably helped propel de la Renta's business to its current state, making close to £100m in sales annually. But if de la Renta wasn't making decent clothes, all that celebrity froth wouldn't have counted for anything.
What Oscar de la Renta excelled at was making polite clothes with a touch of pizzazz - the word dreamed up by former American Vogue editor-in-chief Diana Vreeland, who encouraged de la Renta to join the salons of Elizabeth Arden as designer to help make his name. That was in 1963 - by 1965, he had his own label.
