Crop of de la Renta shops weakens signature style
By Dini S. Djalal
SINGAPORE (JP): It's Oscar time for fashionphiles -- and that doesn't mean siphoning the Armanis from the Versaces at the Academy Awards. The Oscar in question is statuesque, but dressed in finest wool instead of gold.
After years of standing by his reputation of styling society's grand dames, Oscar de la Renta is staking out new fashion territory with his new bridge collection, simply called Oscar. The lower-priced range, launched last summer in the United States and Asia, has been a hit so far with clotheshounds wanting the couture name without the couture prices.
Now everyone can have an Oscar -- stars, students, socialites, and, of course, Capitol Hill heavyweights. De la Renta trumped his peers when Hillary Clinton strolled through the Inauguration Ceremony in a crisp melon suit and an elegant gold gown at the ball, ending speculation that the First Lady would repeat last year's blunder and commit 1997's first public fashion faux pas.
"(Hillary) said, I want to look in the way my husband looks wonderful. The First Lady has a very young attitude," the Dominican Republic-born but trans-Atlantic commuter told The Jakarta Post.
De la Renta's star hasn't dimmed since that publicity coup. In March, he opened his first boutique in Paris and became the first American couturier to have a boutique in couture's capital.
Biggest couture
"Paris is very important because many of my customers are there," said de la Renta. In 1993, he became the first American to design couture for a French institution, the House of Balmain. He's not shy in raving on about the honor. "Balmain possibly has the biggest couture clientele compared to other houses," he said.
Yet de la Renta is not naive of couture's limitations, which prompted him to expand to cheaper lines. "In couture, the dresses are very, very expensive. It starts from US$20,000. My clothes are expensive, but not that expensive."
In contrast, the separates in his new bridge line average at US$200 per item, but his ready-to-wear collection is priced at double or triple that amount.
By setting up shop in the Faubourg-Saint-Honore, the French capital's most prestigious address, it's also clear that de la Renta wants his own name up in lights.
"Everybody goes to that one block, so it's very important for me to open a boutique there," said de la Renta. Indeed the Fauborg is the Grand Central Station of fashion, being home to Lanvin (once an employer), Yves Saint Laurent, Karl Lagerfeld, Hermes, Christian Lacroix, Sonia Rykiel, Emanuel Ungaro, Gianni Versace and Valentino.
The newest Oscar shop in Asia is in Singapore, opened last week by de la Renta himself. But like many other fashion ventures of late, de la Renta's name was the fine packaging necessary to ship out stackfuls of sweaters. The name may be Seventh Avenue, but the money and assembly-line production behind the Singapore boutique is Indonesian.
Retailing and garment manufacturing giant PT Great River International built the Oscar de la Renta boutique under its wholly-owned subsidiary in Singapore, Apparel World. Through its factories here, it is also manufacturing and distributing the collection for the whole of Southeast Asia.
"It's not competitive to just be the distributors," said Great River President Director Sunjoto Tanudjaja. Great River is taking a leap from just selling the brand names to also making the goods at competitive costs. "If you want to break through the market, you also have control the marketing," he said.
Great River currently markets the Oscar collection, as well as their other licenses such as Kenzo, at 12 retail outlets in Singapore, and 20 outlets in Malaysia. In Jakarta, Great River has four Oscar boutiques and 20 men's corners in department stores.
Brand-minded
Sunjoto downplays Great River's role in the project, explaining that "Indonesians are still brand-minded" and may be less inclined to buy the products if produced locally.
What may hurt sales in Singapore, however, is not snobbery but location. The boutique occupies "140 square meters of prime retail space", explains Great River representatives, but the space is in Millenia Walk, a new and largely empty shopping complex by Sun Tec Convention Hall.
It's a curious choice, as Singaporean retailers suffer from declining sales and locals admit the last thing Singapore needs is more malls. But Sunjoto is confident of his venture. "We hope in six months that the area will get more crowded," he says.
Perhaps Great River is counting on that old elite adage: Have money, will travel and shop. Will the masses flock to the shop? Not likely. The clothes are pretty things for trust-fund ladies.
Take the double-faced wool suits in shades of apple and pistachio. They're great workwear, but the three-quarter length sleeves are reminiscent of a time when women wore gloves to their afternoon teas. De la Renta has often said he doesn't do retro, but his clean crisp style is nostalgic of 1950s femininity. Witness the twinsets (this season beaded and sequined), the coats' sloping fragile shoulders, the sculpted shift-dress with ribboned neckline, the voluptuous taffeta gown worthy of Jayne Mansfield. No Nineties cool here, just yesteryear's sweetness, expertly cut and embroidered.
Correction: Oscar also does cool, as does every other designer eager to copy the slouch of hip icons Helmut Lang, Ann Demeuleemeester, Miuccia Prada, and Calvin Klein (lately a Lang wannabe himself). De la Renta's collection would have been much stronger if it gelled its sugary vision, rather than made concessions to passing trends.
For example, the black, asymetrical sheath with fishtail hem has walked down all the runways. On de la Renta's catwalk of dainty pointilly dresses and black lace wraps, the avant-garde nod was like a dark cloud over a sunflower field. When de la Renta does chinoiserie (this season's vogue), it carries not the subversive mood of Prada's oriental theme, but just old-fashioned prettiness.
Even when he does ruffled wrap-around dresses, in sheer flower motifs, a de la Renta signature in the 70s, it looks like he's been flipping through Prada's catalog.
After nearly 40 years in the business, De la Renta should know the fleetingness of fads. True to his claim of "the power of femininity", de la Renta is best at feminine detail. The collection's stars were the intricate lace and beading over simple sheer silhouettes. While everyone may now have an Oscar, not everyone wants an Oscar who can be everybody.