Oscar de la Renta is stepping away from fashion week as it prioritises profits over market share

Bolen’s views on shows parallel his broader views on the business: he is less focused on competing for market share with Europe’s big luxury brands than on running a resilient, profitable business. After falling 65 per cent in 2020, he says sales are on track to reach US$120 million this year — “nicely above” 2019 levels. More importantly to Bolen, profit margins have grown from “about 10 per cent” to nearly 25 per cent.

First-time customers tend to come to Oscar de la Renta for bridal, and then start to buy into the rest of the range. “The idea of us chasing after competitor brands that have leather goods businesses or beauty businesses or both, it’s just been a mistake,” he says. “We want to go a different way.”

The designer Oscar de la Renta was born in Santo Domingo, in the Dominican Republic, in 1932. A student of art, he learnt to drape and sew at Cristóbal Balenciaga’s salon in Madrid and later at Lanvin under Antonio del Castillo in Paris before opening his own house in 1965 in New York. He soon became the de facto designer of Fifth Avenue socialites and White House matriarchs, outfitting nearly every first lady from Jacqueline Kennedy to Michelle Obama (Hillary Clinton was a friend and eulogised the designer at his memorial service). His later success on the red carpet, in particular with Sarah Jessica Parker in her Sex and the City heyday, made him an international star.