Three years after her Venetian wedding, Amal Clooney’s dramatic Oscar de la Renta bridal gown – the last which the fashion legend designed before his death in October 2014 - is now on display as part of a major retrospective of the late designer’s work.
Amal’s bespoke off-the-shoulder French lace gown, which was embroidered by hand with tiny pearls, appears as part of The Glamour and Romance of Oscar de la Renta at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Texas. Curated by André Leon Talley, the former editor-at-large of US Vogue, the exhibition charts de la Renta’s fashion career from the 1960s through to 2014. Open to the public until 2018, it brings together around 70 ensembles, sourced from the designer’s archive and lent by famous clients, including Houston native Beyoncé.
‘We have the great Amal Clooney’s wedding dress, which is the last wedding dress that Oscar designed before he died,’ Talley explained in an interview with WWD. ‘It’s on loan from Mrs. Clooney, but we have been very anxious to have that dress for so long. We wanted it [last year, for a retrospective held in San Francisco] but Mrs. Clooney reached me through her assistant to say that she felt it was too early to have her dress in an exhibit after she married [George, in September 2014].’
Talley went on to describe the process of acquiring Amal’s wedding dress for the exhibition as akin to ‘a diplomatic summit,’ before suggesting that, post-Harvey, the people of Houston are ‘ready for an optimistic party. They’re upbeat and I don’t feel a sense of any kind of depression. [The exhibition is] about beauty – a celebration of this great man’s life and I think it’s quite inspiring and wonderful.’
Speaking to Vogue during one of her final dress fittings ahead of her wedding, Amal opened up about her relationship with the designer. ‘He is the man every woman wants to hug!’ she said. ‘George and I wanted a wedding that was romantic and elegant, and I can’t imagine anyone more able than Oscar to capture this mood in a dress. Meeting him made the design process all the more magical, as he is so warm and such a gentleman.’
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