Oscar de la Renta gets a reprieve, plus lessons learned writ large from Leica
"Hands Off" this Saturday. And pay attention — make your list and check it twice.
Photo credit: Getty Images. Oscar de la Renta with Audrey Hepburn.
When I heard about Usha Vance’s plan to inflict herself on Greenland and its people in this Danish-controlled territory, my first reaction was: Please, God, don’t let her wear Oscar de la Renta again.
Not most people’s first thought, I know.
So bravo to every single Greenlander for resolutely refusing to receive Usha and her husband — officially, unofficially, and for the foreseeable future.
But let’s consider for a moment the horror of what the visuals could have looked like if Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen had been willing to in any way meet with the Vances.
Usha would have needed to look sharp and powerfully so: dressed to kill (Greenland’s sovereignty) while sartorially signaling an impending takeover of their country by, you know, America.
Which is why I was worried for Oscar last week, both the man, and the fashion house. Usha wore Oscar de la Renta for another recent triumph, her husband’s swearing in. She looked beautiful in Oscar pink. Because anyone would.
And since Oscar has been the fashion go-to for epic moments on both sides of the political aisle and for decades, I feared she would just slide herself right back into the brand for this next round of democracy destruction. The difference between now and January is that this administration has succeeded in fostering damage previously unimaginable: dismantling USAID, gutting the CDC, harassing students and green card holders, and levying tariffs that make absolutely no sense (how is your 401K doing today???).
Oscar died in 2014, and I believe he would not have wanted someone so complicit in such atrocities to wear his work.
This also feels personal, because I had the honor to meet Oscar de la Renta several times — and what everyone knew about him back in the day was that he was a consistently wonderful human being. He was warm, welcoming, gracious, inclusive, elegant, refined, kind to all. Gallant does not begin to describe, dignified does not do justice.
Oscar de la Renta collected humanity and always imagined better. He lifted up others, especially those in his homeland of the Dominican Republic, and he made the world a more beautiful place through his elegant inner essence.
Usha Vance’s planned trip to Greenland, luckily, sparked uproar from Greenlanders and Danes who were angry that the original itinerary was planned without their consultation. The government of Greenland reacted during the furor stating that they had “not extended any invitations for any visits, neither private nor official.”
And Jesper Steinmetz, a correspondent for Danish channel TV 2, reported that U.S. representatives had gone around “knocking on one door after another” in recent days to ask if they would welcome a visit from Usha Vance. “Everywhere, the answer was the same: no thank you”, Steinmetz said.
This is what a country looks like when half of its population is not glued ongoing to Fox News. You actually have an informed citizenry. (I pray that we see much more of this same kind courage in our own country to stand up against bullies who mean harm.)
Said informed citizenry successfully forced its government to pressure the Vances to scale waaaaay back on their plans. So they instead staged a one day (apparently three hour) excursion to a remote U.S. Military base far north in Greenland — where the poor U.S. Service men & women there had no choice but to show up and say hi to them.
I’m guessing that scaling back also included downgrading Usha’s wardrobe plans. In the end, she went with a blah blah coffee colored sweater/with dark pants/and a snow parka (twinning weirdly with her evil do-er spouse) for the photo ops.
Nothing to see here. For now.
On that note, we did have some positive developments this week, like Cory Booker’s record for the longest speech ever delivered in the Senate (“If America hasn’t broken your heart, then you don’t love her enough”). It was a long-overdue and much needed moment behind U.S. democracy. Then there was Susan Crawford’s win for Wisconsin’s Supreme Court — and thank you to the 55% humanly decent in that state who voted her in, and shoved it at Elon. Justice rides a slow horse, but karma’s a bitch.
Photo credit: Air Mail Weekly
And since we’re collecting examples of courage and conviction, here’s one that re-emerged this week out of Air Mail Weekly’s always crackerjack and unique reporting.
From Air Mail Weekly on Instagram:
Leica, the German camera company that has supplied photographers from Henri Cartier-Bresson to Annie Leibowitz, turns 100 this year.
Few German companies with a legacy as long as Leica’s don’t have an awkward 1933-to-1945 period in their history to explain, but the camera brand managed to be a thorn in the Nazi’s side even as Hitler’s armed forces used its products. Ernst Leitz II described the Nazi Sturmabteilung (SA) troops as “brown apes,” and the company was proud to hire Jewish workers while they could.
Later, Leica helped Jewish employees and their families — along with other Wetzlar Jews who did not work for Leica — escape the Holocaust by sending them to New York as “employees”. In many cases, the jobs they were ostensibly leaving for didn’t exist. To this day, there are dozens of descendants of the “Leica Freedom Train” living in the U.S.
This is what courage looks like people.
Finally, an important reminder for this moment from Whitney Alese (thereclained.bsky.social):
Pay attention. Pay attention to who is obeying in advance & who is gleefully participating in the harm. Pay attention to who is stepping up to fight back & who is tone policing them. Pay attention to who cares more about decorum & who cares more about democracy.
Pay attention, because when this is all over, & certain folks will want to rebrand or revise their own history, remind them of who they were when it mattered.
One thing you can do to fight back this weekend.
This Saturday is “Hands Off Saturday,” a nationwide mass mobilization organized to protest against the Trump administration and the Trump-Musk political coup.
You can register here to march wherever you are. I will actually be in Philadelphia this weekend, so will march there (rain or shine) at 12:00pm at 1400 John F. Kennedy Boulevard. We need to see big numbers out on the streets this Saturday everywhere in our country.
And make a list in your head of who helps out in this moment and who hinders (which includes doing nothing). Pay attention, and never forget.
👀 Coming tomorrow!!!
Stay tuned for chapter five of Core Curriculum: Everything You Need to Know I Learned at Vogue.
“Bed checks with Mr. Big. And, ya gotta take the f—king L.I.E.”
More harrowing glimpses into my life in my twenties in the late 90s at Vogue, working for both Anna Wintour and Ron Galotti (the real life inspiration for Sex and the City’s Mr. Big). You will not want to miss this next wild ride. Please subscribe!