Remembering Oscar de la Renta, Five Years After His Death

October 20 marks the fifth anniversary of Oscar de la Renta’s death. His passing marked the end of an era in the New York fashion industry. Once dominated by a few big names—including De la Renta’s—American heritage houses are now being led by a new generation of designers.

Born in the Dominican Republic, the tall, dashing De la Renta trained in Spain with Cristóbal Balenciaga and in Paris with Antonio del Castillo, before arriving in Manhattan in 1963. (He would have another turn in Paris in the mid-1990s when he designed Balmain couture.) The designer, who worked for Elizabeth Arden and Jane Derby before going it alone, quickly became part of the fabric of the city’s fashion and social scenes. (He and Françoise de Langlade, his first wife, famously wore cat masks to Truman Capote’s Black and White Ball.)

A man of exquisite taste, De la Renta could find joy both in a Met-worthy painting and a game of dominoes. Casual, in the sense of dressing down, is not a word that described this man of manners or his sophisticated work. His designs were ladylike without being stiff, and he could whip up an airy summer dress with the same facility as he could a red carpet gown, which he did often for the likes of Lupita Nyong’o and Sarah Jessica Parker, who wore his gowns as herself and, memorably, as Carrie Bradshaw in a pivotal scene on Sex and the City.

Similarly, De la Renta understood the appeal of pairing a frothy tulle ball skirt with a cashmere cardigan, or a simple white blouse with a treasure of an embellished velvet skirt. As an avid gardener, he appreciated the importance of pruning, and his point of view was as clear as it was elevated. Here, we tend to his memory by looking back at some of his work as it was photographed for Vogue.