Oscar de la Renta shows designs for the younger generation at NY Fashion Week

Feb 13 , 2018

Tree branch-like embroidery featured in the Oscar de la Renta collection at New York Fashion Week. Photo: AP

The brand’s collection at New York Fashion Week features a youthful touch, and a mix of grand and casual

At Oscar de la Renta, the label that epitomises luxury and refinement, designer Laura Kim has a new motto for her clients: You’re not dressing up for your mothers any more.

Models present the Oscar de la Renta autumn/winter 2018 collection at New York Fashion Week. Photo: AP

Kim and her design partner, Fernando Garcia, are taking the company into the future with skill and craftsmanship (and great fabrics), but also with the view that fashion’s rules have changed forever. Or, as Garcia puts it: There ARE no more rules.

Alex Bolen, CEO of Oscar de la Renta, with actress Dakota Fanning at the label’s autumn/winter 2018 runway show during New York Fashion Week. Photo: AP

This means that for evening, an outfit can be grand and casual at the same time. Many of the evening looks Kim and Garcia presented on Monday at their runway show epitomised this idea – for example, a long glittering skirt with embroidered sequins, perhaps in a ball gown shape, but topped with a simple sweater or very light top.

One of the elegant looks from Oscar de la Renta during New York Fashion Week. Photo: AFP

�You can wear a T-shirt to an evening event,�Kim said after the show, if you can pull it together nicely. “I just think there are so many more options to show your creative arc. For us, it’s great. It’s a fun time.”�She herself was wearing a tulle T-shirt that could move easily from day to evening.

Businesswoman Nicky Hilton Rothschild attends the Oscar De La Renta autumn/winter 2018 runway show during New York Fashion Week. Photo: AP

The designers said their collection was inspired by a memory: A 2014 trip to the Cloisters, the upper Manhattan museum specialising in European medieval art and architecture. Their host: None other than de la Renta himself. (The legendary designer died that same year.)