Above: Natalie Wood in short black tulle dress covered in bow knots of taffeta ribbon. 1966 ● The pink "schoolgirl" satin dress worn by model with black stockings was on the cusp of the movement toward short dresses; as hems went up, so did waistlines. 1963.
 



Flowered dress and apricot silk coat with matching lining was made for Joan Sutherland's first concert in the United States. 1961. ●
Balloon dots dance on a short strapless dress with full pouf skirt. 1961
Scaasi with Lily Pons when he received the Neiman Marcus award in Dallas. 1959
   


President George Bush receives congratulations at his Inaugural Ball.  The First Lady wears a gown with blue velvet top and satin skirt draped to one side.  The gown established Mrs. Bush as America's glamorous grandmother. 1989.


Arnold Scaasi escorts Barbara Bush who is wearing a gold lame dress printed with blue and red flowers to the Literary Lions Dinner at the New York Public Library.


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

First Lady Laura Bush. 2001.

 
     


Above: Arnold Scaasi with Mrs. Bush, Liz Smith and Parker Ladd, Co-Chairmen of the Literacy Partners Evening of Readings.

Left: Jacqueline Kennedy bought the ruby satin long sleeved dress with shallow scooped neckline at Bergdorf Goodman when her husband was a U.S. Senator from Massachusetts. 1959.
   
   


Left: President Eisenhower and Mrs. Eisenhower in pink dress. 1960.

Right: Mamie Eisenhower in a gold brocade dress with Nikita Krushchev during the soviet Union leader's visit to Washington. 1959.

 Sketch for dress worn by Mamie Eisenhower for first Washington visit of Charles de Gaulle following World War II. 1960.


The look of the 1970’s was longer and more fitted. He tended then to fit his clothes from the shoulders to the hips and then let the skirts fan out. It took a bit of engineering, but this technique also proved flattering. It suggested the look of the 1930’s without looking retro. Candice Bergen wore his multicolored paisley satin “gypsy” outfit sprinkled with sequins at the 1971 Academy Awards.

It was back to the fullness in the 1980’s, when clothes were rounder than the decade before but not as exaggerated as in the 1950’s. Scaasi’s clothes tended to have a very fitted line through the bodice, achieved by an inner “corset” of his own design and construction that was built into the dress. His imagination ran riot and he relished designing the grandest clothes.

In 1990 Scaasi changed the direction of his design; slim clothes were important. “They are almost non-clothes.” Scaasi says. “Fabrics, texture and color took over.” His construction techniques use intricate cutting and seaming to follow and incidentally enhance the shape of a woman’s body, but Scaasi makes his own interpretation. Minimal fullness tends to start at the waistline.  By raising the waist about an inch and a half in front and dipping it about two and a half inches in the back, he can elongate the body and find a cut that flatters most women, without looking fussy.
 

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