Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
One of my favourite quotes by the late great Oscar de la Renta who sadly passed away on October 20 after a reported battle with cancer, was: “Fashion is about dressing according to what’s fashionable. Style is more about being yourself.”
He also suggested that you should ‘walk like you have three men walking behind you’. That’s rich and sound advice for all fashionistas.
He has designed clothes for some of the world’s most famous celebrities and was recently back in the news for creating the wedding dress for the woman who stole American actor George Clooney’s heart.
Amal Alamuddin, the 36-year-old British-Lebanese human rights lawyer, tied the knot in style to the world’s once most eligible bachelor.
Much to the delight of numerous Arab women she has been making fashion headlines in recent times in everything from Stella McCarney to a custom-made off-the-shoulder Oscar de la Renta gown.
The wedding gown made of French lace-crafted at the Sophie Hallette factory in France was also hand-embroidered with pearls and diamanté accents.
She told People magazine at the time that de la Renta was ‘such an elegant designer and such an elegant man’.
The designer was born in Santo Domingo and became internationally-known in the 1960s for dressing US first lady Jackie Kennedy. He was also famous for working with Lanvin and Balmain and his own atelier fits everyone from red carpet divas, debutants and royalty.
Amal specialises in human rights law, extradition and criminal law and worked with Bahrain’s government in connection with the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry, which was tasked with looking into incidents that occurred during the 2011 unrest.
She has been criticised for taking her husband’s surname by some feminists but in my opinion, anyone that could win the affections of the Hollywood heartthrob deserves to call herself whatever she wants.
