Anna Wintour Pens Thoughtful Essay For the Late Oscar de la Renta After His Illness

Anna Wintour penned a thoughtful essay in Vogue for her late friend Oscar de la Renta, who passed away from an illness this week.

“He told me he felt he had had the most amazing life and he was not afraid. This strength must have been with him in the hospital last week when he made the decision to turn off treatment; it was not the quality of life he wanted,” Anna shared in an essay for Vogue. “And then, last weekend, [my daughter] Bee and I went up to Kent to see him. He could no longer move, so we went out and took pictures on his iPad for him to see and ate a chicken sandwich with [his wife] Annette and Janet, his extraordinary nurse. His last words to me were I love you, and I said I love you back.”

“He always said accept your friends for who they are, not for who you want them to be. Oscar was everything you could want a friend to be. Annette was his perfect partner…She slept on a cot in the hospital every night he was there. Theirs was the greatest, most life-enhancing love affair. Last week in the hospital he said that she never wears the beautiful jewelry he gave her, and she said simply, ‘I have you.’” Anna concluded.

Read the entire essay at Vogue.com.