The Scaasi^® trademarked image is elegance and comprehensive composition in an artistic ambiance.  Scaasi designs to enhance the subject and to appeal to its milieu; the commercial aspects of trademarks and designers’ reputations are subliminally derived from and are inherent in Scaasi’s exuberant product.
 

Looking back on a career as a fashion designer in New York City that has spanned almost half a century, Arnold Scaasi sees a progression in his work from intricate cuts to simpler shapes with more reliance on fabrics than on construction. But though all designers must, of necessity, conform to the general outline of clothes of the period in which they work, from the beginning Scaasi concentrated on styles that other people weren’t doing.

“From my collection, I had this feeling that I should do clothes that were needed and wanted but somehow were not out there.” He reports. If someone else was doing it, there was no need for me to repeat. But dresses, beautiful embroidery, and novel combinations of fabrics and colors weren’t as available. That’s why I focused on them. Even in the 1980’s, when I knew that women needed ball gowns, not too many people were doing them. They were very successful with me."
                                  

When Scaasi began designing in the 1950’s, clothes were rounded at the hipline, supported by lots of net underneath, and accented by panniers and draped effects. It was a style that suited him and he designed wonderfully creative and exciting clothes. From the beginning, Scaasi’s designs were distinguished by intricate workmanship, which came from his training in European couture and his relationship with American Couture designer Charles James. Couture elements were perceived in his earliest ready to wear designs, which quickly gained him a place in the American Fashion establishment.

In the 1960’s, the era of the miniskirt, Scaasi’s hemlines were short, but his styles were more exuberant than the prevailing trend.

Left: The black net over blouse and pants Barbra Streisand wore in 1969 to pick up her Oscar.  Right:  Scaasi with Streisand at the 1969 Academy Awards Party afterwards.

Pear-shaped "turquoise" cabochon drops hang on lattice of clear rhinestones in necklace from Scaasi jewels. 1961

He went to Paris to design “other world” embroideries, some made of two inch squares or rectangles of shiny plastic set with glittering stones. At the time, the shape was loose: clothes dropped from the shoulders. Scaasi evolved a cut that formed an inverted V under the bust and then began to flare. It provided some shape and suggested the waistline.

 It worked very well for many women, including Barbra Streisand, he recalls. It goes back to his credo: “clothes must touch and define some part of the body even when a dress is essentially loose and flowing.”        
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