Arnold Scaasi, fashion designer, dead at 85

Designer Arnold Scaasi, whose flamboyant creations adorned first ladies, movie stars and socialites, has died.

Scaasi died early on Tuesday at New York-Presbyterian Hospital of cardiac arrest, said his longtime friend, Michael Selleck, executive vice-president of sales and marketing at Simon & Schuster. The designer was 85.

Scaasi — which was his given name, Isaacs, spelled backward — specialised in made-to-order clothes, often in ornate, brilliantly coloured fabrics and trimmings like beads and ostrich feathers.

However, one of his most famous designs was a flimsy lace pantsuit designed for Barbra Streisand’s Oscar appearance in 1969, when she won for Funny Girl in a tie with Katharine Hepburn. It featured bell-bottom pants and matching top in spangly black lace, and the thin fabric used created the impression of nudity.