The Mint Museum Randolph is bringing the fashion and style of Oscar de la Renta to Charlotte with The Year of Fashion. The curators and event coordinators are hard at work to present an exhibition of fashion designs by de la Renta, organized in close collaboration with the House of Oscar de la Renta and the designer’s family.
The exhibition is being curated by André Leon Talley, the former American editor-at-large for Vogue and a lifelong friend of de la Renta. It contains fashions made during the span of the famed designer’s career in Spain, Paris, and New York.
The Mint hosted the late designer for a fashion show fundraiser organized by the Mint Museum Auxiliary in 2011. This show, which will run from April to July, is part of the larger Year of Fashion show, a three-exhibition series that began in 2017. The series serves to celebrate an art form the Mint has collected for more than 40 years.
Weston M. Andress, the chairman of the Mint’s Board of Trustees, declared the “Year of Fashion” to 400 attendees at the sold-out Coveted Couture gala in 2017, an annual fundraising event permanently devoted to celebrating the Mint’s collection, conservation, study, and exhibition of fashions both historic and contemporary.
“Fashion design is like kinetic sculpture, and leading couturiers are like master architects who build with fabric and applied elements using the body as armature,” said Annie Carlano, Senior Curator of Craft, Design, & Fashion at the Mint. “Our relationship with fashion is both universal and personal; fashion reflects the times we live in and who we are.”
