On November 23, 2001, the Friends of the Costume institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art were invited to Balenciaga Spanish Master with Oscar de la Renta and Hamish Bowels at the Queen Sophia Spanish Institute on Park Avenue.

We gathered over prosecca and canapés under a portrait of the beautiful blond queen in the oak paneled reception room on the second floor of the Institute. First, Inmaculada de Habsburgo explained how Margaret Strong, the Marquise de Cuevas, and a right thinking neighbor had saved the building from demolition in the 1950’s. Next, Harold Koda, Chief Curator of the Costume Institute, told how Philippe de Montebello had lured him back to the Met by threatening to hire someone to de-accession the costume collection. Oscar de la Renta, who began his career “picking up pins and sketching” at the Balenciaga ateliers in Madrid, revealed that he had “told a ... Read More