Photo Credit : Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art
1930 - 2015
Arnold Scaasi
Arnold Scaasi was a legendary Montreal-born fashion designer who created iconic gowns for first ladies, movie stars and socialites, including Barbara Streisand, Hillary Clinton, Princess Yasmin Aga Khan and Elizabeth Taylor.
Scaasi was born Arnold Isaacs, to an immigrant Jewish family in Montreal. He was introduced to fashion at a young age because his father was a furrier. His formal study of fashion took place first at Montreal’s Cotnoir-Capponi School of Design and then at the Syndical Chamber for Haute Couture in Paris. Scaasi moved to New York City soon afterward, where he worked with designer Charles James.
He was encouraged to change his name (Scaasi is Isaacs backward) by interior designer Robert Denning (originally Robert Dennis Besser), who said it would give him an Italian flair. With this new moniker, Scaasi quickly rose to prominence as a fashion designer, one of his dresses making the cover of Vogue in 1955. In 1964, he opened his own couture house in New York City, attracting socialites and celebrities. His signature looks were cocktail dresses (incorporating fur, feathers, sequins, embroidery), tailored suits and glamorous evening wear. When Barbara Streisand wore Scaasi’s sheer, sequined pant suit to the Academy Awards the year she won for Funny Girl, the designer was propelled to international stardom.
Scaasi’s most memorable designs are held in museum collections and couture houses around the world, including the Smithsonian Institution and the New York Historical Society. They have also been featured in retrospectives at venues including Kent State University, Ohio University and the Fashion Institute of Technology. He authored two books: Scaasi: A Cut Above and Women I Have Dressed (and Undressed!).
In 1996, Scaasi received the Council of Fashion Designers of America Lifetime Achievement Award.
