The Dominican Republic has a new sartorial son to boast about and, no, his name is not Oscar.
It’s Santo-Domingo-born, Queens-raised Peter Hidalgo, the former design director under controversial Spanish fashion king Miguel Adrover.
The 38-year-old class act stepped out with an eponymous line of curve-hugging and trend-bucking dresses that have garnered whispers of comparisons to the great Oscar and have women forsaking their formerly girly frocks.
“He’s the biggest thing in my country. For me it’s a huge compliment, but I don’t like comparisons,” Hidalgo says about being compared to the legendary de la Renta. “Those are big shoes.”
Humility aside, Hidalgo has eschewed the normal route of young designers and hasn’t targeted the windows of overly priced boutiques.
Instead, he’s consciously cultivated a loyal clientele in a manner as calculated as the hip-to-waist ratio that rules his sultry hourglass-conscious dresses.
He’s carried exclusively in New York at Linda Dresner, the Upper East Side institution that sells fashion heavyweights like Rick Owens and Chloé, and he painstakingly focuses on quality and tailoring rather than press and marketing.
“I’ve been working for a long time, so when I decided to put my name on something I was careful how I approached it,” he says.
And his mature modus operandi has let the stitches speak for themselves.
“We sell his collection very, very well and have taken reservations from just a look book because his silhouette is so exact and flattering. He’s a master with curves,” says Douglas Chen of Linda Dresner.
And to think, it’s only Hidalgo’s sophomore collection on racks now.
“He’s definitely on the road to win over the same clients as Oscar, but perhaps a younger set with a bit more of an edge than ladies who lunch,” adds Chen.
Hidalgo’s feminine creations are inspired by women of a different era, with tight tailoring and exquisite detail, but they seem to be suiting the modern gal just as well.
“I try to make clothes for a woman to wear over and over. Something timeless not just wow, in the moment,” adds Hidalgo.