Oscar de la Renta Publishes an Open Letter to Cathy Horyn, Calls Her a "Three-Day Old Hamburger"

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In response to Cathy Horyn's less-than-complimentary review of Oscar de la Renta's spring 2013 show, de la Renta published a less-than-complimentary open letter to the fashion critic in the print version of yesterday's WWD. It reads:

Dear Cathy,
This year I celebrated my 80th birthday. With pride, I can say that for more than 50 of those years, I have been privileged to work in a profession that I deeply love, one that has given me tremendous pleasure. I have always considered that my role as a designer and a great admirer of women has always been to make a woman look and feel her very best.

I respect and accept criticism because in many ways it does help us develop; I try to make my work better each time. What I do not accept is when criticism is personal. If you have the right to call me a hot dog, why do I not have the right to call you a stale 3-day old hamburger? My advie to you is to abstain from personal criticism. Professionals criticize the clothes, not the people.

Here's a reprint of the original offending comment from Horyn's review:

"The rest, like Oscar de la Renta's ruffled latex tops in Easter-egg colors, is just for show... Mr. de la Renta is far more a hot dog than an éminence grise of American fashion. He opened his lively show on Tuesday with a red latex pencil skirt, a sleek ivory wool pantsuit and dairymaid lace. The models' hair was streaked with war paint, and midway along, after bead-quivering jackets and neon-bright skirts, he sent out white lace with black pencil-like scribbles. It was wonderfully cantankerous, a good bit of window-dressing for the gooey stuff that followed."

Personally, we hope the exchange keeps up. There are so many more picnic food insults to be had here!

UPDATE: It's the Friday after a very long Fashion Week, so we've decided to give away a limited-edition Tim Gunn Barbie to the person who tweets the most creative picnic-food insult to @Racked. We think it's a fitting prize.

· Source: Business of Fashion/Twitter
· Which One of These is Not Like the Other: Oscar de la Renta, Karlie Kloss in Ladylike Silhouettes, and Latex [Racked]