Fashion designer, Oscar de la Renta, died yesterday at his home in Kent, Connecticut. He was 82. The designer had been diagnosed with cancer in 2006.De la Renta was born in the Dominican Republic in 1932. He moved to Spain when he was 18 to study painting and went on to begin an apprenticeship with Cristobal Balenciaga. He went on to work for Lanvin and Elizabeth Arden (who once had a fashion business).His first fragrance came in 1977 in partnership with Stern fragrances. Oscar was a floral oriental fragrance and paved the way for over 30 fragrances.Stern was acquired by Avon in 1987, and then sold to Sanofi Beaute (later to become YSL Beauté) two years later. After a series of acquisitions the fragrance license ended up at L’Oréal in 2008, after L’Oréal’s acquisition of YSL Beauté.One year later De La Renta terminated his license with L’Oréal and brought all fragrance operations in-house until October last year, when Inter Parfums acquired certain assets of the fragrance division.De La Renta had designed dresses for Jackie Kennedy, Princess Diana, Oprah Winfrey and Hilary Clinton. Most recently, he had designed Amal Alamuddin’s wedding dress for her marriage to actor George Clooney.Image by Matti Hillig [CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons
