Is Oscar de la Renta as debonair and collected as he looks? As late models rushed through the doors shouting, "Hair? Anyone?" he sat in a chair fielding questions before his Monday-afternoon show but admitted to Jada Yuan he was starting to feel the nerves.

How do you feel?
Always the volcano is inside.

Do you have last-minute details to finish?
It will be finished when the show starts. There are always adjustments till the last minute. We're showing, I don't know, 58, 59 pieces, but we had, like, 125. So the most difficult thing is always to edit.

Do you wish you could show more?
Today the fashion is that nobody does big, big shows. I mean, I remember the times when we'd show 160 pieces with six models, and they'd have to bring their own shoes. When I was working on Seventh Avenue in the mid-sixties, cover girls were cover girls and runway models were runway models. They did different jobs. And if you were a girl doing a runway show, you would come to the job with two pairs of shoes, depending on the season, white satin and black satin. No changes of stockings, no makeup artists. They had to do their own makeup. They had to do their own hair. Now it has evolved into something where you have to look at every single detail.

And there are the theatrics of the shows, music, and lighting …
There's something you have to remember that is very important: The show is just a spectacle. It's only fashion when a woman buys it and puts it on. Then it becomes fashion.

Watch a slideshow of the Oscar de la Renta collection.
Watch video of the Oscar de la Renta show.
Browse photos from backstage and front row at Oscar de la Renta.