The fashion designer Oscar de la Renta arrived in New York in 1963 with letters of introduction to the editor-in-chief of Vogue, Diana Vreeland, the Condé Nast magazines supremo Alex Liberman, and John Fairchild, whose family owned Womens Wear Daily. Within a day, he was offered a job designing couture for Elizabeth Ardens boutique on Fifth Avenue she asked his price and he answered, preposterously, $700 a week.
He got it, earned it, and charmed his employer out of ill-humour by letting her win at cards. He stuck to the same approach until his death, from cancer, at the age of 82: talent, daily application, perfect timing, and a suavity that took the anxious edge off big-occasion dressing. In his last 15 years, he became the safest pair of hands for women exposed to the eyes of the world on red carpets or bridal aisles. Amal Alamuddin married George Clooney in a fussless, timeless Oscar de la Renta gown in September.
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