Oscar’s works of art
MFAH exhibit captures the drama of de la Renta’s designs
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The show’s 70 beautifully detailed outfits took painstaking hours to set up: Wrinkles had to be steamed out of every ruffle. Billowing tulle and bows had to be fluffed. Each sequin or bead in place. The entire garments perfectly fitted — no sagging or puckering — to mannequins with perfectly positioned limbs. Then curator André Leon Talley added his final magic touches of jewelry (all by de la Renta as well), gloves, hats and capes arranged just so, every fold pleasing to his refined eyes.
The tightly edited show looks somewhat sparse in the large galleries that have recently held monumental sculptures and Art Deco automobiles. The mannequins look disturbingly androidlike, their cold features at odds with the warmth de la Renta exuded. Yet each piece is a visual feast, and the high ceilings play up their drama.
The show’s rooms illustrate the elements of the designer’s “aesthetic memory,” Talley said. In a yellow room — de la Renta’s favorite color, evoking Spanish sunshine — are outfits inspired by the drama of Spanish culture, from the regalia of Holy Week processions to royal portraits, flamenco-dancers and matadors. Then come rich ochre-walled rooms expressing de la Renta’s appreciation for Eastern exoticism, with its elaborate patterning, intricate embroideries and fur trims. Next comes a green room with floral and bridal dresses that reflect his passion for gardens and Marie Antoinette. And finally, a dark room with red-carpet allure.
MFAH decorative arts curator Cindi Strauss collaborated with Talley to integrate paintings, furniture and decorative objects from the museum’s collection.
These are the kinds of things de la Renta himself collected, Strauss said.
“It’s a way to speak to his personal passions as well as the inspiration for the dresses.”
These vignettes provide the show’s richest moments. Juan Pantoja de la Cruz’s 1605 canvas “Margaret of Austria, Queen of Spain” and Sir Joshua Reynolds’ 1777 “Portrait of Mrs. Jelf Powis and her Daughter” are standouts, as are objects set within the Orientalist-inspired fashions — 17th-century blue lacquer cabinets; Chinese porcelain vessels; coromandel screens; a quartet of demure, 18th-century English “Japaned” hall chairs, painted with Asian-style landscapes; and a stylized armchair by Italian designer Carlo Bugatti that looks fit for Cleopatra.
The settings also evoke the lifestyles of the designer’s clients, Talley said.
“A de la Renta client lives in a beautiful world of modernity and romanticism,” he said. “Her rooms are beautiful. She reads poetry and literature. She goes to the opera. And she wears beautiful dresses.”
Some of Houston’s bestdressed women were effusive about the show during Wednesday’s patrons’ preview. Many wore Oscar cocktail finery from their closets, a gesture they planned to repeat with their luncheon dresses for Thursday’s fashion show and opulent ballgowns for Saturday’s gala.
Rarely do so many Houstonians feel so intimately connected to the objects they’re viewing at the museum.
Only about 20 percent of the outfits are repeated from last year’s larger Oscar retrospective at San Francisco’s de Young Museum, Talley said, partly because he and his team — including fashion historians Molly Sorkin and Jennifer Park — asked Houstonians to participate.
The Oscar label has been ubiquitous in the closets of many Houston socialites for decades. They loved the genteel man, who died three years ago. But they have held onto his clothes because everything about them works.
The show’s pieces look so impeccable, only an expert could discern the differences in his off-the-rack seasonal designs that hang next to the show’s one-ofkind couture creations.
“Oscar got it,” said Dr. Yvonne Cormier, who has two dresses in the show.
MFAH officials have high hopes for attendance. More than 250,000 people saw the de Young Museum’s de la Renta retrospective during just 10 weeks. In contrast, 82,000 people attended “Degas: A New Vision”