Almost three years after the pandemic began, legendary American fashion house Oscar de la Renta has still not made a return to New York Fashion Week. One show was streamed on a more humble platform — Amazon.com.
For Oscar de la Renta, the pandemic was a test of survival. “There were days when I thought we are just not going to make it,” Bolen recalls. Just as fabric for the pre-fall collection arrived, department stores shut and cancelled their orders. Factory closures meant fabric could be neither cut nor sewn. “Between lost business and owing money to vendors and landlords, I estimated we had about a US$25 million hole in the balance sheet,” Bolen says. By the end of March, all but 27 of Oscar’s 300 staff had been put on furlough.