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Oscar de la Renta Saves Uptown

Leave it to Oscar de la Renta to save uptown fashion, in a challenging season for establishment chic. His spring 2010 collection presented Wednesday, Sept. 16, in New York, was an impressive, options-packed tour de force, and a welcome reminder that classy dressing can also be innovative fashion.

De la Renta generously listed his six design assistants in his program notes, a rare piece of noblesse oblige in fashion. One understands why, after a series of superbly draped day dresses sauntered down the catwalk in the Park Avenue church in which the show was staged. In a word, great work by a gifted studio and atelier.

Silk gazar dresses in hues of teal or bark were also supremely well cut. Wrapped ever so slightly around the torso and gathered to give just the right sense of volume, they were mini master classes in the art of how to hang fabric. Moreover, you could tell these looks would flatter a “normal” woman’s body, and not just a model.

“There’s never been a better time to be a woman. There are so many possibilities for them, so fashion has to reflect that. Collections need to be multi faceted. Women cannot keep running home to change, so they need clothes that work for both work and play, like a great little dress worn with a white shirt at the office, that then looks fabulous for a cocktail at 7 p.m.,” explained the ever dapper de la Renta to FWD.

His sense of the right accessory, whether some splendid cloche felt hats or snazzy suede belts with piping was also spot on. The show did sag a little midway through with one or two white lace passages that were far too insipid, but bounced back gloriously at the finale.

The designer’s best moments were very much for evening, with a pretty remarkable look on the melancholic-eyed Russian model Vlada Roslykaya, a blush colored chiffon column with scattered silver embroidery. This was followed by a series of gold embroidered tulle dresses or black lace Velasquez images that were ideal red carpet looks.

De la Renta finished with great flourish, a magnificent grand dame tulle indigo crinoline with luscious crystal bodice worn by model Arlenis Sosa, who, like the designer, hails from the Dominican Republic.

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