De la Renta understood beauty

When Helene Hankin awoke Tuesday to the news of the death of Oscar de la Renta, arguably America's most influential fashion designer, she thought of the portrait hanging in her dining room.

In it, Hankin, then a 32-year-old expectant mother, wears a navy blue de la Renta gown. The bodice, a long-sleeve cardigan, features a white satin collar and cuffs, and the dress flares into a full ball skirt.

"He was my designer," said Hankin, now 59 and a mother of two in Erwinna, Bucks County. "Everything that he made for me had shoes and handbags to match. He was kind and a true gentleman, a representation of an era gone by."

De la Renta, who died Monday night at 82 of complications from cancer, was a star because he understood beauty.

"It was Bill Blass, Geoffrey Beene, and Oscar," said Lisa Blank, a personal shopper at Saks Fifth Avenue in Bala Cynwyd's Fifth Avenue Club. She met the designer several times.

"He was the epitome of elegance and formality at a time when women dressed, and casual was not the norm."

In his more than 50-year career, de la Renta was the go-to couturier for first ladies, actresses, and ladies who lunch, his designs illustrious stamps of high society. Always the tanned, quintessential gentleman, he spoke to our stylish souls.

There was no one in the fashion world like him: He was a master of the hourglass silhouette, the king of waist-interest. (See the feathery pink confection Sex and the City's Carrie Bradshaw wore on her dream date with Alexander Petrovsky.)

Lacy wedding dresses were his dominion, too. His last to wow the public was the magnificent gown Amal Alamuddin wore the day she married George Clooney. Hours before he died, de la Renta's fashion house announced it would carry a bridal gown inspired by hers.

Just last week, local designer Emil DeJohn, who had known de la Renta professionally for more than 30 years, sent 18 of his Art Institute students to New York to dress models for the de la Renta presentation at Bridal Fashion Week.

"The students got to touch Amal's dress," said DeJohn, who spent class time Tuesday showing videos of de la Renta runway shows. "His work was unbelievable. I am heartbroken."

Even Michelle Obama had acquiesced to de la Renta's greatness. After he criticized her three years ago for not wearing enough American designers (read: his), she donned a navy blue de la Renta two weeks ago at a cocktail party during an all-day fashion workshop for high school students at the White House.

The first-ever fashion show I attended in the late '90s in New York was an Oscar de la Renta for one simple reason: I knew who he was.

Yet it wasn't until I took my seat under the Bryant Park tents that I truly understood his talent. Models floated down the runway in fur, silk taffeta ball gowns, pantsuits tailored to a T, all under glistening chandeliers (there was always some sort of chandelier). Just by sitting in the fifth row, I was participating in a sparkling, elegant fantasy where every woman was special.

Unlike those of many of today's red carpet designers, de la Renta's pieces are ageless - as radiant on Taylor Swift as they are on Oprah Winfrey.

Since 2003, the de la Renta brand has been run by the designer's son-in-law, Alex Bolen, who helped inspire younger actresses like Penélope Cruz and Amy Adams to wear him on the Hollywood red carpets. Even after de la Renta was diagnosed with cancer eight years ago, the brand grew 50 percent to $150 million in sales.

Locally, his appeal is universal as well.

The first couture gown ever purchased by Nicole Cashman was a de la Renta. It hangs on a mannequin in her office because it's so precious to her, says the business owner and fashion insider.

Nearly every year, Adele Schaeffer, chair of the Academy of Music Anniversary Ball, wears a de la Renta gown to the annual black-tie event, as does Leslie Anne Miller, wife of orchestra chairman Richard Worley.

De la Renta was born in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, in 1932 to a Dominican mother and a Puerto Rican father - a family of aristocrats.

He apprenticed under European fashion greats Cristobal Balenciaga and Antonio Del Castillo, but his career took off in the 1960s when he became one of the first designers to dress Jacqueline Kennedy. He often put her in tea-length dresses with bows at the waist, a look that would eventually become a signature of his. In 1977, he introduced a line of perfume, called Oscar, and the following year came an accessories line.

The fashion world will mourn de la Renta. With his unparalleled fashion sense, he made the world a more civilized place.

"All the angels in heaven will dress better," DeJohn said. "As he will surely redo their robes."

215-854-2704

@ewellingtonphl