Eighty-year-old Oscar de la Renta is as relevant as ever. Having collected the Founders Award at the CFDAs last week, the supremely quotable and completely current designer was in the press again over the weekend, after speaking at 92Y, a Manhattan organisation that promotes the arts. 

De la Renta, who was born in the Dominican Republic, has had a starry career, from his beginnings at Balenciaga, to the French houses of Lanvin and Balmain and on to America, where he built his empire and became the designer who dressed First Ladies and movie stars. His life has not been without his ups and downs – his first wife, the former editor of French Vogue Françoise de Langlade, died in 1983 and he has recently battled cancer – but he continues to run a business that turns over £600 million a year and he looks pretty damn dashing while doing so.

What do you need to know about de la Renta?

He moves is political circles, and always has done. He often dressed Jackie Kennedy when her husband was in office and he created a sparkling gown for Hillary Clinton for her husband’s second inauguration in 1997. He remains close to Hillary Clinton and it was she who presented him with his award at the CFDAs last week. Collecting the award, he made a quip about  Hillary becoming, fingers crossed, the next president and then the two left the fashion bash early to make it to Henry Kissinger’s 90th birthday. Fabulous. 

He has, however, famously never dressed Michelle Obama and is on the record as criticising her fashion choices. When the First Lady wore a J.Crew cardigan to meet the Queen in London in 2009, de la Renta said: ‘You don’t … go to Buckingham Palace in a sweater.’ But when asked at the 92Y event if he would like to dress her, he answered: ‘Would I like to dress her? I would like to dress everybody! She’s a very good-looking lady and it’s her own right to wear what she wants to wear.’

He believes in second chances and famously gave John Galliano a three-week residency this year, when the disgraced designer collaborated on the Oscar de la Renta autumn/winter 2013 collection. Speaking at 92Y, he said: ‘John came to me because he wanted to re-enter the business. His problems are not my problems. He’s a wonderful guy, unbelievably talented, and we had a wonderful time together. It’s important to have someone that challenges you — 75 per cent of the collection was done by the time he got there. But I think that there were a lot of things that John tweaked around. Everyone in life does deserve a second chance.’ The pairing has led some in fashion to remark that Galliano could be being groomed as a successor to 80-year-old de la Renta.        

He has worked on diffusion lines in the past, notably Miss O in the 1970s, and has diversified into homewear and perfumes, but when asked about the possibility of producing a mass line at 92Y, he said: ‘Offers have come, but I’m not about gimmicks. I’m about dressing a woman [pause] who can afford to buy my clothes.’ 

So there you go: if you want to be an Oscar de la Renta woman, you had better start saving or look into marrying or becoming a president.