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Oscar de la Renta Told Hillary to Cut Her Hair

Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Hillary Clinton and Oscar de la Renta’s friendship has a lush history rooted in politics. And their respect for each other became loud and clear at this year’s CFDA Awards: She showed up to present the Lifetime Achievement Award to him and called him an “icon”; he, in turn, took to the stage and simply said, “I think she’s going to be our next president.”

The level of respect and admiration de la Renta has for Clinton is palpable in the designer’s latest interview, with Bergdorf Goodman’s Linda Fargo in Gotham magazine. Aside from stating the standard “I assume we will have a woman president soon,” he added in two cents about Hillary’s new hairdo. In response to Fargo’s question “While we’re on the subject of Hillary—didn’t she say that whenever she wore one of your dresses, her husband would comment on how great she looked?” the designer answered, “Yes,” only to quickly steer the conversation to what really mattered: Hillary Clinton’s new haircut — or, more important, the fact that he planted the seed in her mind to get the fabulous chop. “Doesn’t she look great now? I told her a while back [when she was Secretary of State] she should cut her hair,” he continues. “She said she couldn’t do it then because when she arrived in a foreign country and asked for a hairdresser, Homeland Security would have to check the person out. [Editor’s note: With long hair, she could style it herself.] But doesn’t she look fantastic now?” This is how to pull off a humblebrag, ODLR style.