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Oscar de la Renta, born July 22, 1932 in the Dominican Republic to a Puerto Rican father and a Dominican mother, moved at 18 to Madrid, Spain, where he studied painting at the Academy Of San Fernando and found work as a sketcher with top Spanish fashion houses. He took a designing class with Cristobal Balenciaga, later joined Antonio Castillo in Paris as a couture assistant, and in 1963 relocated to New York, where he worked for Elizabeth Arden before joining Jane Derby Ltd. in 1965.
In 1963, de la Renta relocated to New York, where he became a protégé of Baron de Gunzburg and worked for Elizabeth Arden. This experience and the contacts would later give him the foundation needed to launch his own clothing lines and perfumes.
In 1965, he left Elizabeth Arden and went to work for Jane Derby Ltd., an American fashion company in business since the 1930s. The labels of the clothes read "Oscar de la Renta for Jane Derby." After Derby's death in 1969, de la Renta took over the company and renamed it Oscar de la Renta.
Apart from the signature Oscar de la Renta products, he has launched the Pink Label products and has ventured into the world of women's accessories, men's clothing, sportswear and perfumes. He also produces, with an American manufacturer Century Furniture, a collection of home furnishings based on antiques and other items that furnish his houses in Connecticut, New York City, and the Dominican Republic.
In 1967, he became the third husband of Francoise de Langlade (1931-1983), an editor in chief of French Vogue. Born in Bordeaux and raised between Paris and the island of Martinique, she worked for the fashion house of Elsa Schiaparelli and the fashion magazine Harper's Bazaar before joining French Vogue. After her marriage to de la Renta, she worked as a consultant to Elizabeth Arden, had their Manhattan apartment decorated by Denning & Fourcade and later opened her own decorating business; her clients included fashion executive Marina Schiano and actors Helmut Berger and Florinda Bolkan. Once a mistress of Baron Elie de Rothschild, she was previously married to and divorced from French businessman Jean Brure, by whom she had one son, Jean Marc Brure, and diplomat Nicholas Bagenow. She died of cancer.
In 1989, the designer married the former Anne France Engelhard (1940-), the former wife of New York banker Samuel Pryor Reed and the adopted stepdaughter of American minerals industrialist Charles W. Engelhard Jr.. She is the only child of Jane Pinto Reis (1917-2004, aka Marie Annette Reiss/marie Antoinette Reiss), a Chinese-born philanthropist of Brazilian, German, and Irish-American ancestry, and her first husband, Dr. Fritz Mannheimer (1890-1939), a German-born Dutch banker and art collector known as the King of Flying Capital. Her maternal grandfather was Hugo Reiss, a Brazilian diplomat who reportedly served as minister to China.
De la Renta has stepchildren from both marriages; he also has an adopted son, Moises de la Renta.
According to Puerto Rican newspaper, El Vocero, former United States President Bill Clinton stayed in De La Renta's Punta Cana home during January of 2006, holding a meeting with Dominican Republic Leonel Fernandez in De La Renta's house at the beach resort.
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De la Renta's training followed the classic European couture route, reached step by step. He arrived in Madrid at 18 to study painting at the Academy Of San Fernando, began to show an interest in fashion, and found work as a sketcher with some of Spain's top fashion houses — sketching being the entry job through which an artist's eye is converted into fashion work. He then took a designing class with Cristobal Balenciaga, one of Europe's top couturiers, and later moved to Paris, where he joined Antonio Castillo as a couture assistant. Painting, sketching, a class with Balenciaga, and assisting in a Paris couture house form a complete apprenticeship in sequence: visual training first, then observation of great houses, then instruction, then hands-on couture work.
In 1963 de la Renta relocated to New York, became a protégé of Baron de Gunzburg and worked for Elizabeth Arden, gaining the experience and contacts that later gave him the foundation to launch his own clothing lines and perfumes. In 1965 he left Arden for Jane Derby Ltd., an American fashion company in business since the 1930s, and the labels read Oscar de la Renta for Jane Derby — his name on the garment, attached to an established company. After Derby's death in 1969 he took over the company and renamed it Oscar de la Renta, completing the transition from employee to owner without starting from an empty room. Beyond the signature line he launched the Pink Label products and expanded into women's accessories, men's clothing, sportswear, perfumes, and, with the American manufacturer Century Furniture, home furnishings based on antiques and other items that furnish his houses in Connecticut, New York City and the Dominican Republic — a collection drawn directly from his own interiors.
In 1967 de la Renta became the third husband of Francoise de Langlade, an editor in chief of French Vogue who had worked for Elsa Schiaparelli and Harper's Bazaar before joining French Vogue, and who after their marriage worked as a consultant to Elizabeth Arden and later opened her own decorating business. She died of cancer; she lived from 1931 to 1983. In 1989 the designer married Anne France Engelhard, the former wife of New York banker Samuel Pryor Reed. De la Renta has stepchildren from both marriages and also has an adopted son, Moises de la Renta, so his family, like his career, joins the Dominican Republic, Spain, Paris and New York in one life.
Oscar de la Renta was born on July 22, 1932 in the Dominican Republic, the son of a Puerto Rican father and a Dominican mother. At 18 he moved to Madrid, Spain, where he studied painting at the Academy Of San Fernando.
De la Renta left Elizabeth Arden in 1965 to work for Jane Derby Ltd., where labels read Oscar de la Renta for Jane Derby. After Derby's death in 1969, he took over the company and renamed it Oscar de la Renta.
Apart from signature Oscar de la Renta products, he launched Pink Label products and ventured into women's accessories, men's clothing, sportswear and perfumes. With Century Furniture he also produces a collection of home furnishings based on antiques and other items that furnish his houses.