“I spoke to Nicolas personally, and apparently, he’s only showing 27 or 28 looks,” de la Renta said. “But he wants them there early because he’s going to film and photograph those looks before he starts, so he can use them in a bigger presentation in Paris next month. None of us was aware of that before we scheduled our show.”
Erin Wasson, Carmen Kass and Isabeli, de la Renta said, are among the models who have been nixed from his show, thanks to Balenciaga’s scheduling. When some models said they wanted to do both, he alleged that Balenciaga threatened to cut them from its show.
“What disappoints me is not losing the girls,” de la Renta said. “It’s that this is not in the spirit of the way things are done here. I would hate to interfere in the show of anyone, even a young kid who is doing his very first show. That’s not the way I am, but I cannot expect people to behave the way I think. I am neither upset nor offended.”
The folks at Balenciaga, however, have begun to take issue with all the complaints. They booked their spot back in December, when the tent shows were scheduled for mornings and nights only, just to avoid such a conflict. And, a spokesman said, they have been more than accommodating with models. “It’s unfortunate, really,” he said. “We’re not saying the models can’t do Oscar. If some models cannot accommodate our call time, that’s fine with us. We just can’t book them. There is no desire to prevent models from doing Oscar de la Renta.”
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De la Renta should be comforted with the fact that there’s more than enough pretty girls to go around. He still has Jacquetta, Caroline Ribeiro, Lilliana from the Yves Saint Laurent campaign, Caroline Murphy, Alek Wek, Mini Anden and Gucci alums Natasha V. and Anne V.