Oscar de la Renta, Iconic Fashion Designer, Passes Away at Age 82

There are many different portals through which young, naive eyes enter into the world of fashion: magazines. Newspapers. Coffee table books, the Internet, someone’s mom, the mall. Sometimes it’s through a hint, a hint that fashion has to be the thing you’re best at because the science major didn’t work out or you don’t fit in, but man oh man, can you get dressed. Sometimes it’s by accident, a trip down the fashion rabbit hole when you least expected it. And sometimes it’s an immediate declaration; a knowledge that this place, above all else, is where you belong.

Oscar de la Renta made people feel like they belonged.

It’s kind of ironic considering the nature of his iconic house and all that it represented — high end society, uptown dressing, black tie galas and marvelous women of a golden era — but if there’s one word others used to describe Mr. de la Renta, it was warm. And kind. I’ve heard charismatic thrown around quite often, too, along with gentleman, a true talent, legend, an icon. He enveloped people with his designs as though they were extensions of his own welcoming arms (weren’t they?) and pulled anyone who admired beautiful things — those who worked in fashion, and those who absorbed it through osmosis — into the world that he created. What an escape.

Every person who encountered him found themselves enamored by his spirit. On more than one social media caption last night, in regards to his passing, read “Joie de vivre.” In fact, Oscar de la Renta was 82 when he passed on October 20th, yet his spirit was so young that the entirety of our industry felt a jolt of shock upon realization that he was technically, what many would consider…old.

But I don’t think “old” was ever part of Mr. de la Renta’s lexicon.

In every photo he appeared full of light; smiling, gloating, winking, smirking. One friend who worked with him for quite some time posted a picture of the man, acting like a boy, leading the way down his office aisle in a caterpillar-like train of rolling chairs, he and his employes’ hands waving as though they were dancing or imitating royals or something — they were just clearly having fun. That’s what his clothes did, right? They had fun. They ensured the women who wore them had fun. Oscar made beautiful, gigantic gowns that were unapologetic in their loudness (the man was never one to shy away from volume, let alone chartreuse); the embroidery was thick, the shoes were were bold. His pantsuits seemed to beg for the addition of a turban, maybe a cocktail ring or costume earrings. His women played dress up each time they got dressed.

Dress up. That’s another portal through which many of us entered this world. Perhaps it was subconscious, or unintentional. Surely a child, in her mother’s inappropriately-elegant gown hanging off her six-year-old frame, has no idea as she stares into the mirror and imagines herself a princess that she might one day care about an industry that almost jades her from such decadent moments. Almost jades her though. Almost. Because each season at Oscar, when the house lights turned down and the runway turned on, and the first model would out in a confident, chin-up strut, de la Renta — the man and his clothes — reminded every woman, from every portal, “Dress up. You belong.”

Photo by Stuart Ramson/Associated Press via the New York Times