Business, Design & Style
Case Study: Oscar de la Renta Dresses
Lesson time 05:12 min
Explore world-renowned fashion label Oscar de la Renta with Laura and Fernando as they share details behind what inspired their designs and what techniques went into creating two sensational dresses.
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Topics include: Case Study: Oscar de la Renta Dresses The Flower Dress The Holographic Summer Dress
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Fashion luminaries and Oscar de la Renta creative directors Laura Kim and Fernando Garcia teach you how to bring ideas to life through collaboration.
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[ELECTRONIC MUSIC] - So after we have approved everything from the artworks that we get from India and we get the pieces into New York's atelier, then we start to see it come to life. [ELECTRONIC MUSIC] Usually we have a pre-made shell where we place all the embroidery on top of. In this case, it was a very transparent nude tulle shell that has already its built-in corsetry and horsehair and crinoline, all of these things that basically allow for the skirt to have this bit of a house shape, a bit of a bell shape to it. Something that I was having fun with this time was having an open back-- if you don't mind turning, Isabella. It's because usually these dresses have corsetry, and this one has a more relaxed vibe with an open back, so that was different for something of this type of design for us at Oscar. And then what was fun also in developing this was the mixture of threadwork with crystals, um, which we hadn't done before. As you can see, some of these ivy leaves are all thread, and the rest are all crystal. And it was fun to explore scale with the flowers that we'd never done before, with these three-dimensional petals. It's in essence like, a version of the Taylor Swift dress that we developed for her when she wore to the Grammys. - We do look at it in the way how this will sit in with the rest of the collection. But we also have to think about, our clients are not going to go out in groups with their friends in our collections. So it has to look good on on its own too, to make sure that every single piece is very special on its own. - We do take some elements of-- of this garment and apply it to things that perhaps are more wearable. We take one of the flowers and we embellish a sweater. We also take some of these blue flowers and do a more relaxed-looking kaftan, something that's more easy to wear for, perhaps, an older client. And-- and we sort of multiply the ideas from it. [ELECTRONIC MUSIC] So when we were designing the prints, we actually loved the idea of clashing Ugo Rondinone's sculptures that he did in a surrealistic way in this landscape setting. And the color combinations that we found were quite amazing. One of which inspired me right away, which was the citrine and the forest green-- or the kelly green, a dark kelly green, I guess-- it really felt fresh to me. I hadn't seen that color combination in a very long time, if ever. And so I thought, I think that we need to find a way to marry something that was very much a core type of look for the brand with this new color injection into it. So what I did is I quickly doodled this sketch and showed it to our fabric designer using a body of a dress that Kate Young, a stylist friend of mine, loved for Margot Robbie that she wore to a premiere. We removed the scarf of the dress that she had, and I thought it was perfectly suited dress to go for like, summer parties, something that our customer already purchased before, and ...
About the Instructor
As founders of fashion line MONSE and creative directors at Oscar de la Renta, Laura Kim and Fernando Garcia have transcended their industry with a partnership that’s more than the sum of its parts. Now they’re teaching you their secrets to creative collaboration. Learn to cultivate strong business relationships, navigate the creative process, and join forces with others to improve the workplace—and the work.
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Laura Kim & Fernando Garcia
Fashion luminaries and Oscar de la Renta creative directors Laura Kim and Fernando Garcia teach you how to bring ideas to life through collaboration.
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