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Artful Oscar
Ever the fashion man-about-town, Oscar de la Renta is now a man about various official disciplines. On Monday he showed his polished, extensive pre-fall collection and, later that afternoon, walked me through "Joaquin Sorolla & the Glory of Spanish Dress," at Queen Sofia Spanish Institute on Park Avenue, a project he conceived and oversaw as the Institute's chairman of the board, a position he takes very seriously and to which he dedicates considerable time. "When you rest, you rust," he quipped.
The exhibit opens with a cocktail party tonight and runs through March 10. It has a hard act to follow: Last year's "Balenciaga: Spanish Master" proved a huge hit in terms of civilian reach -- 13,000 people visited the show, which then traveled to San Francisco's de Young Museum -- and industry impact; the two fashion seasons that followed saw ample Balenciaga references.
De la Renta got the idea for this show from "Vision of Spain," the Sorolla mural commissioned in 1911 by Archer Milton Huntington for The Hispanic Society of America, a quiet jewel of a museum and resource center in New York's Washington Heights.
As research, Sorolla spent years traveling through Spain to chronicle the native dress, some of which he purchased, amassing a sizable collection. Many of the pieces shown come from his archive, now belonging to the Spanish ministry; most of the rest, from Madrid's Museo del Traje. De la Renta loves the mural, not to mention the fanciful sartorial flourish. He got the yen to...