Oscar de la Renta was a great man, and a great American designer. Over five decades he made fashion that was elegant, based on the tools of the trade that he learned in Spain at Balenciaga, and in Paris, at Lanvin under Antonio Castillo. I also considered him one of my close, best friends. He truly cared about my well-being, regardless of whether or not it was my weight-loss battle, or was I lonely, and would I come dine with him and Annette at home in New York. I spent Thanksgiving with him, about eight or nine years ago, just the three of us and his son Moises in Kent, Connecticut. Family was of the utmost importance to him. The wedding he and his wife created for stepdaughter Eliza Bolen’s nuptials, was one of the most beautiful and original country weddings I ever attended. And the social world was there in full force. 
 
 Oscar was king of the historical social anecdote, no matter if it was about the Marquis de Cuevas’s famous costume ball, or Marie-Hélène de Rothschild’s dinners. He lived through his youth, following the great bullfighters of Spain, when he worked in Madrid, he honed his design DNA in Paris and with his great success in New York, he always gave back, philanthropically. He personally supported an orphanage in the Dominican Republic. This was one of his passions—he provided housing, food, education, and hope for those beautiful children. 
 
 I met Oscar de la Renta, in 1974, when I arrived in New York. He was then wed to his first wife, Françoise de Langlade, a former French Vogue editor-in-chief. Oscar and Françoise took me under their wings and mentored me socially. 
 
 Every single morning, Françoise would call me once I got to my desk at Women’s Wear Daily down on Twelfth Street. It was an open floor plan then, and my desk was no more than ten steps from John Fairchild’s desk with a low bookcase separating us. I was an accessories editor, and at night, a beat reporter. This is where I learned my craft as a social chronicler. Françoise would often call me up and ask me where I had been and what I had done the night before. 
 
 Oscar and his wife were the first to invite me to dinner in their home, with the likes of Dr. Henry Kissinger, or Tatiana and Alexander Liberman; they also invited me to dinner when they were in Paris, with their friends, like Cristiana Brandolini d’Adda and the late Andre Olivier. 
 
 One day, Françoise called me and said I had messed up socially, I had forgotten to come to lunch with just her and Annette Reed, now Mrs. de la Renta. In those days—the seventies—Oscar and Françoise were the Social Lions of New York. They served the best food and made dinner at home a vast, rich experience of color and textures with wine and decor. In the new book, Valentino: At the Emperor’s Table, Valentino specifically wanted me to write in the introduction how Oscar and his wife were the best and most outstanding New York host and hostess. 
 
 His impeccable personal style with people, parties, and fashion fueled his work. Known for his appropriate elegance, he always designed with the ultimate motivation that women must look and feel beautiful. Having worked beside him on so many of his Balmain haute couture collections for nearly a decade as a stylist, I watch him return again and again to his roots, the highest standards of French couture, having first apprenticed with Cristóbal Balenciaga in Madrid, and then working as designer at Castillo-Lanvin. There was always a sense of the flourish of a great flamenco flounce in his dinner and evening dresses, the bias elegance of silk charmeuse in slim sheath dresses, and simple black or white cashmere coats, that his wife Annette loved. In the winter, she often wears one of his cashmere coats to dinner and never removes it, she loves them so. 
 
 In 2013, Oscar asked me to help him with an exhibit that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton organized on First Lady style at the Clinton Library in Little Rock, Arkansas. We all flew down to the presidential library and the show was full of exquisite, elegant de la Renta clothes worn by former First Ladies from Nancy Reagan to Laura Bush. 
 
 As evidenced in his last great wedding dress, which he designed for Mrs. George Clooney, Oscar was also a master of the grand wedding gown. My favorite, of course, was the dress and veil he designed for Elizabeth Shaffer, who got married last summer. Oscar and Annette took a helicopter and flew down from Connecticut to Long Island so that he could make the final adjustments just before she walked down the aisle. 
 
 Some of my fondest memories of Oscar are in his native Dominican Republic, diving into a natural waterfall in the mountains, or having the ultimate pleasure of seeing him dance. He was the best dancer. It was a joy just to be in his presence, especially in his beautiful homes and gardens, where happiness reigned. 
 
 Click through the slideshow below for Oscar de la Renta’s best moments in Vogue. ||||| By Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images. 
 
 Oscar de la Renta, a storied couturier with a flair for the romantic, who dressed countless members of Hollywood, political, and actual royalty in a six-decade fashion career, died Monday at age 82 at his home in Kent, Connecticut, his wife Anette de la Renta told The New York Times. 
 
 De la Renta had battled cancer at various intervals in recent years. 
 
 Born in the Dominican Republic, and trained in Spain and Paris, the designer studied under Balenciaga and designed for Lanvin before starting his eponymous label that catered especially to the socialites of the day like Babe Paley and C.Z. Guest. He dressed many a First Lady in his illustrious career, such as Jackie Kennedy, Nancy Reagan, Hillary Clinton, Laura Bush, and Michelle Obama. 
 
 During a 2009 interview with Vanity Fair’s John Heilpern, the designer admitted that the “ladies who lunch” were never his target clients. 
 
 “Let me tell you, it was never the ladies who lunch. They never lunched! They always wanted to stay thin.” 
 
 “You want to know who my customer is?” he asked. “All the women who can afford to buy my clothes! My customers are successful workingwomen. They might be spending less at the moment, but my approach is that fashion must always be optimistic, and that a woman will always be enticed by beautiful clothes.” 
 
 In recent years, those working women could quite often be found on awards season red carpets. De la Renta followed his vision through until the very end, making headlines just last month for designing Amal Clooney’s stunning wedding gown, for her Venice-set nuptials to George Clooney. 
 
 Related: The Importance of Being Oscar
– Fashion designer and icon Oscar de la Renta died yesterday at 82, after a yearslong battle with cancer, the New York Times reports. His illness, the paper notes, didn't slow him down: He designed Amal Alamuddin's dress for her wedding to George Clooney just last month, and his business expanded by 50% in the eight years he faced the disease. The Dominican Republic-born designer's clientele ranged from first ladies—including Jackie Kennedy, Nancy Reagan, and Michelle Obama, Vanity Fair reports—to Oscar winners. "You want to know who my customer is?” he once asked. "All the women who can afford to buy my clothes!" He began work in fashion design in the 1950s in Spain, when the wife of the then-US ambassador saw his drawings and sought a dress for her daughter. His career moved him to Paris and eventually the US in 1963. By the 1970s, de la Renta and his first wife, Françoise de Langlade, were "the Social Lions of New York," André Leon Talley writes in Vogue. The Times notes that the couple were central to the rise of designers as the social elite. But de la Renta didn't see his work as particularly "heavy. Somebody might ask, 'What is Oscar de la Renta?' And you could say, 'It's a pretty dress.'"