Spectacular Fashion on Display

In the spring of 2011, Oscar de la Renta hosted a runway show at Charlotte, North Carolina’s then recently launched Mint Museum Uptown location, and though the famed designer would never return to the Queen City—he died in 2014—his work soon will with the opening of the traveling exhibit The Glamour and Romance of Oscar de la Renta (April 29–July 29, 2018), curated by André Leon Talley, former American Vogue editor at large. Part of the Mint’s yearlong celebration of its acclaimed fashion collection, the exhibition serves as the glittering backdrop for the museum’s Coveted Couture Gala (April 28), cochaired by Laura Vinroot Poole and her husband, Perry, owners of the high-end Charlotte clothiers Tabor, Poole, and the venerable Capitol, which marks its twentieth anniversary in 2018. The exhibit showcases original sketches; editorial photography from various fashion magazines; and fifty ensembles pulled from de la Renta’s corporate and personal archives, the Pierre Balmain collection (de la Renta directed the French house from 1993 to 2002), and couture-stuffed private closets. Click through for an early look.