André Leon Talley was at the new Rizzoli bookstore on Broadway and 26th Street in Manhattan on Wednesday night to sign copies of his new book, “Oscar de la Renta: His Legendary World of Style” (Skira/Rizzoli). The tome features a foreword by Anna Wintour, along with essays by Paula Wallace, president and founder of the Savannah College of Art and Design, and clients Mercedes Bass and Huma Abedin. The book is a salute to the late designer and a record of the exhibition of the same name that Talley put together at SCAD — with which he has been affiliated for more than a decade —and which ran from early February to the beginning of May of this year .
Talley was joined at the shop by his friends, among them de la Renta’s widow Annette, de la Renta’s stepdaughter Eliza Bolen and her husband Alex, and Bass.
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“I did the book because I loved Oscar so much,” Talley said. “I considered him family, and he did care for me.” He recalled frequently spending Thanksgiving with the de la Rentas because they were concerned that he would be alone. With this book, Talley said he wanted to celebrate the designer’s “standards not only of style but of New York City philanthropy, and I just created an album of love. I went through it [writing the book] in six weeks, and it took me down a bit.”
Later he noted, “Oscar’s dresses make my heart smile.”
Also present was Bethann Hardison, the advocate of diversity in fashion, who was talking about a different designer, praising Ralph Lauren this season for including “five or six girls of color in his show, some of whom were very dark, and three with natural hair, and showing them right next to very light-skinned golden blondes. It was very New York.”