Oscar De La Renta Essay

Oscar de la Renta’s Childhood and Journey to Happiness
On July 22, 1932,s one of the world’s most renowned fashion designers, Oscar de la Renta, was born to his parents Carmen Maria Antonia Fiallo and Oscar Avelino Renta in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. De la Renta is the eldest and the only boy of seven children. Despite living in a politically corrupt country, Oscar lived a relatively happy life in a financially secured and overprotective Catholic family. The only bad thing la Renta complained about his childhood was the terrible clothing they wore. According to the Google eBook, “Oscar de la Renta” by EPUB 2-3, Oscar de la Renta disliked having to wear a uniform when he attended the Escuela Normal elementary school. He especially

enjoyed his art and literature classes that he took in his years at Escuela Normal. His love for art was apparent even before he went to school, for, as a young boy, he would spend most of his time drawing and sketching. He has come to love fashion when his mother went on shopping trips to Havana, Cuba and brought back some beautiful article of clothing to add to her hefty wardrobe. With Oscar’s mother’s passion for elegance and fashion, he had the influence and already the premature artistic talent to pursue his dream of becoming an abstract painter. EPUB 2-3 inferred that Oscar de la Renta’s love of abstract painting could be the outgrowth of his love for beautiful clothing and fashion or vice versa. De la Renta’s destiny could only be determined by following his truest desires of his heart, and so he did.
1950, after graduating from Escuela Normal and with the powerful persuasion powers of his whole-heartedly supportive, fashionable mother, his father reluctantly let 16 year-old Oscar to study painting at Santo Domingo’s National School of Art. Oscar’s father disapproved of his career choice, wanting Oscar to run the the family’s insurance business. It even pained Oscar’s father more when he decided to go study art abroad at The Academy of San Fernando in Madrid. Not even a year later, his loving mother died of sclerosis. Oscar’s father stopped paying his son’s school expenses only so he can get him to come back and run the insurance company. Oscar stayed in Madrid and therefore was given funds from his six younger sisters instead of his father.
Meanwhile in Madrid, Oscar continues to study painting, but is also getting interested in the world of fashion. The art, architecture, and fashion of Spain all inspired the designer to what he is today. According to John Heilpern’s interview with the designer, Oscar always loved to wear customized suits and his tailor also apprenticed him, teaching how to “scale the twin peaks of couture: the cut and the cloth, (Heilpern, 2009).” With his discovery of the aptitude for fashion, he began to sell his sketches to fashion magazines and houses for some pocket money. The wife of Spain’s U.S. ambassador, Mrs. John Lodge, saw some of de la Renta’s sketches and commissioned him to design a debutante gown for her daughter. As de la Renta saw his gown worn by the ambassador’s daughter on the cover of Life magazine, he abandoned painting to become the fashion designer that he is today. Fashion designing was not only seen as a talent Oscar obtained, but the destiny he was longing to face. Oscar de la Renta wanted to become the famous fashion designer that he is to pursue a career that he is passionate and confident about. As de la Renta became an apprentice for leading fashion houses- fashion designers Cristobal Balenciaga and Antonio del Castillo- he has come to learn his influences and inspirations for his designs. De la Renta told Catherine Patch of the Toronto Star that, “Soon I found out that I was more interested in fashion design than I was in continuing as an illustrator, I think that any experience you have; anything you pay attention to is part of what I call ’baggage’ you carry with you all your life. My involvement with painting, even the fact that I come from a tropical country, are part of who and what I am today,” (“Oscar de la Renta,” Encyclopedia of World Biographies). From the tropical vegetation and vibrant color palettes of the Dominican Republic to the opaque, but bold colors and usage of embellishments and lace of the traditional matador costumes of Spain, everywhere Oscar went and every plane of surface his eyes landed on, influenced and inspired the next piece of clothing he was to design. The everyday experiences of life is what moved Oscar forward to who he was a person and what made his designs to tell one a story.
Oscar’s Pieces of Art
Oscar de la Renta was one of the world’s most famous and well-liked fashion designers. He is most known for his jaw-dropping couture-like ready-to-wear collections for women, which almost consistently landed upon the red carpet and New York Fashion Week. Also, he was well known for the evening wear and suits he designed for women. Even though he often designed high fashion clothing for the famous and wealthy, his clothing are now appealing to the general public. You may say that Oscar de la Renta has a wide array of styles, for he can jump to one extravagant design to one extremely different. Oscar’s more generalized idea for when he constructed a new design was to make it modern, and yet distinctly feminine. To be specific, Oscar’s designs for the generalized population of women is that of equal appearance to the men’s basic grey and navy outfits, but there is always a unique sensuality of softness and style that allow women to look their female self. One of Oscar's most cherished hobbies is gardening, so he usually is inspired to incorporate the flowers and plants he grows by embroidering them to appliques. Also, for every place he has been to or lived in, the culture and physicality of the particular lands were brought into his clothing. Oscar often uses the vibrant and bright colors that are often found in his tropical home country, the Dominican Republic, and lace and embellishments used in the the traditional matador costumes of Spain. When Oscar launched his bridal collection in 2006, he proudly stated, “My designs are known for their beautiful ornamentation, details, fabrics, and embroideries-which are never more important than on a wedding dress,” (Kilcooley- O’Halloran, June 2012). For fabrics, Oscar uses much silk and cotton lace- there are many times when he uses mink fur and lamb coats too. The details and embroideries on his clothes are often that of flowers from around the world and striped, polka dotted, and plaid or checkered patterns (modernized designs). Although, to be honest, I find his dresses to be the most extravagant with his signature detail: efflorescent flowers.
In 2012, Spring’s New York Fashion Week was a success when Oscar de la Renta’s opening-“Look 1”- was an intricate and skillfully-done ball gown dress. According to one of Vogue’s writers, Hamish Bowles, the gown was that of a breezy summer look “with a skimpy bodice of cotton lace and a billowing skirt of mustard taffeta,” (Bowles, September 2011). The mustard-colored, or in my case, marigold-colored silk dress hidden underneath the floral appliqués sewn onto a net-like fabric to result with a cropped top, resembles a shriveled yellow rose turned upside down. The opaque floral lace gives off a look of a short extended stem, having been cut off from its roots. Look 1 makes my heart beat faster with the exciting look the dress gives off, but it also gives me the “after-taste” of usualness. To me, the dress seems to express the strength and power one holds and radiates to everything surrounding them, but there is much grief and insecurities hiding inside one’s self. The person once held life, but is now cut off from it. To say in the perspective of the dress, the flower is no longer attached to the stem, so therefore it is considered cut off from life, but still beautiful no matter what.
In 2015’s Spring Ready-to-Wear Fashion show, the collection hit off all of Oscar’s signature schemes: feminine, unfailingly polished, and lush with colors. To be specific, Look 38 really was one that gave off a childlike spirit. Modeled by Julia Joseph, the dress was knee-length and corset-like. According to the review of the fashion show, and Style.com’s writer, Nicole Phelps, Oscar de la Renta found inspiration from the outdoors. Look 38 has a soft pink blush of a color, or according to the website, “petal-pink.” Yellow-green grasses and flowers were hand-tatted cotton lace in shades of bright red and yellow tipping off with white on an flippant crocheted shift of silk and tulle. Looking closely, at the dress, you can see small teardrop diamonds bedazzled everywhere. The dress is slightly flared outwards, and with all of the brightly-colored and sparkly appliqués, the dress resembles what could be the bottom floor of a gleaming meadow. The frock radiates a cheerful light so powerful that it could make even the most depressed person give the slightest grin. I believe this dress could be one to tell a fairy tale story where a princess that faces the worst torment will eventually have her “happily ever after.” The dress expresses great purity and innocence.
The third dress was a customized dress for the actress, Sarah Jessica Parker, for the Met Gala, a fundraising gala meant to benefit the Metropolitan Museum of the Arts Costume Institute. The gown had a heavy cream silken skirt with a black petal-like detail at the waistband and was more fitted and black at the top. At the back of the skirt, the gown lengthened into a huge train with a plaid-like pattern running through the silky material. At the end of the train, Oscar de la Renta’s signature was embroidered across in a bright crimson red of cotton thread. The dress was inspired by many designs of the couturier, Charles James, but it still had its own originality of Oscar’s signature flower-look. Oscar de la Renta worked alongside the actress, his friend. to achieve what she wanted for a gown. Sarah Jessica Parker actually was the one to come up with the idea of Oscar embroidering his signature, which, as a result, awestruck many people, for it was too unusual for a designer to put their signature on a customized dress. According to Sarah Jessica Parker, “The point of the signature and doing it in scarlet instead of his traditional navy, was to honor him-to scream it from the top of the rooftop without opening my mouth,” (Sarah Jessica Parker: A Personal Tribute to Oscar de la Renta, October 2014). The dress is both modern (the black and white color with the criss-cross design on the train) and feminine (the resemblance of an upside-down tropical flower), colliding Oscar’s two of his main design styles. Oscar has spent last 50 years designing dresses; Jessica’s purpose of a signature to be boldly place on the back of the gown now comes clearly to me, Oscar was receiving Jessica’s compassionate appreciation.
Oscar’s Significance to Society
Oscar de la Renta was a man that inspired anyone surrounding him.

His dresses, which were often with floral patterns, bright colors coming from his dearly beloved birthplace, the Dominican Republic, and the common embroidering influenced from Spain, were all brought together to make a unique piece that expresses the true power behind women. Oscar evidently answered to John Heilpern’s question of what is the difference between fashion and style: “Fashion is about dressing according to what’s fashionable. Style is more about being yourself,” (Heilpern, September 2009). For women all around the world, Oscar made that possible. Working women often wear his clothes, not only for the aesthetic value of wearing designer clothes, but to feel the radiance and power they obtain. Recently, on October 20, 2014, Oscar de la Renta died after a long battle of Cancer. Sarah Jessica responded to his death by declaring, “There are wonderfully talented designers, emerging and upperclassmen, but he really was singular, and he has left a vacuum,” (‘Sarah Jessica Parker: A Personal Tribute to Oscar de la Renta,’ October 2014). I think what is meant by this is that for 50 whole years, Oscar brought many styles to the surface and held an originality that many cannot. Oscar has influenced generation after generation to look around themselves and improve on not only your appearance, but on diminishing your insecurities and becoming successful. Clothes, specifically Oscar’s clothes, really hold the power to make you successful in life by changing your mentality to one more determined and ambitious. Designing is art, and art is meaningful. Art expresses the feelings of someone, it is not meant to simply entertain. Oscar de la Renta’s clothes could be depicted of it to be aesthetically done, but if you look between each little thread, instantly you know the dress was meant to outshine every feeling there possibly

is.
Personal Thoughts on Oscar
Oscar de la Renta is a modest and down-to-earth man for one who carries so much fame. When Oscar would make Sarah Jessica Parker’s dresses, she would often say that he was too modest of a person, especially when it came down to embroidering his signature on her silk Met Gala gown. Oscar never puts his signature on any of his dresses! (‘Sarah Jessica Parker: A Personal Tribute to Oscar de la Renta,’ October 2014). Oscar was a man who would never call out for attention and fame. Oscar was passionate and truly wanted to just follow his dreams. Oscar even went against his own father to pursue a career that gave him all he wanted: happiness. It took a lot of guts to go against his father. I am not saying that Oscar de la Renta hurt his family; his mother actually was quite supportive-but I would like to find my Utopia in life as Oscar did. One other thing I do have to say is that de la Renta’s gowns are the most beautiful ones that I have ever seen. Each of the gowns resembles a flower or a colorful landscape, which if I were to wear the dress, I would feel as one within the universe. As many people would say, if they were to reincarnate, they would want to be a sparrow or an ocelot. Wearing one of the floral gowns would make me feel like I am a reincarnate of Mother Nature herself.