Scaasi couture on display

Fashions created by Arnold Scaasi are not the throwaway clothes so many of us are accustomed to, mass-produced, straight off the rack and good for a couple of seasons.

For more than 50 years, the designer has created made-to-order pieces, dressing celebrities and ladies who lunch with one-of-a-kind creations with elegant draping, exquisitely covered buttons, fur accents and rich colors.

Barbra Streisand made headlines at the 1969 Academy Awards in his revealing sheer pantsuit. The blue evening gown worn by Barbara Bush to the 1989 inaugural ball was a Scaasi.

A new exhibit at the Headley-Whitney Museum, Dramatic Design: Vintage Scaasi Couture & A Collection of Decorative Buttons, features some of the designer’s earliest creations, from the private collection of Ronald J. and Teresa Saykaly of Lexington.

A fashion exhibit might seem like an odd fit for a decorative-arts museum known for its displays of jewelry, bibelots and ceramics. Not so, says Amy Gundrum, curator of collections and exhibitions.

“One of the reasons for displaying the dresses is that fashion — especially couture fashions like Scaasi creates — they can be considered decorative art for the body,” Gundrum said. “So it has a nice sense of design. They’re gorgeous.”

All the designs (including the velvet evening gown with sable cuffs shown at left) were created for the same woman — the late Lodie Saykaly, the mother of Ronald Saykaly, a Lexington physician and University of Kentucky professor.

Lodie Saykaly met Scaasi at the beginning of his career, when they both lived in Montreal. She was a socialite, says her daughter-in-law, Teresa Saykaly. He was an apprentice known as Arnold Isaacs (he switched to the elegant-sounding Scaasi, or Isaacs spelled backwards, later in his career) when Lodie Saykaly spotted one of his sketches. She asked him to make something for her.

Later, Teresa Saykaly said, Scaasi would refer to her mother-in-law as “my very first customer.” The original piece, a green wool skirt with a hand-written label made about 1950, is in the exhibit.

Lodie Saykaly and Scaasi both moved to New York, where the designer, who was famous by then, continued to dress his friend not just for elegant evenings out but for day as well. When Saykaly left Manhattan in the 1970s to live in the Caribbean, she presented the couture treasures to her daughter-in-law.

“She said, ‘Teresa, I don’t need them (in the Caribbean), why don’t you take care of them,’” Teresa Saykaly said. “Leaving me to find room for them, it was not so easy.”

She and her husband have cared for the collection of about 20 outfits through a move in 1974 from Manhattan to Kentucky and two Lexington addresses. They even lent a few to Scaasi himself for a New York exhibit a few years ago.

The 10 outfits shown at the museum include a shirt-and-jacket combination made of cowhide, evening gowns, and day dresses with matching coats and jackets.

The pieces shows the variety of the Saykaly collection, Gundrum said. “They’re also full ensembles, some evening, and it’s a nice combination of the two.”

‘The exhibit is on display through March 16. Hours for the museum, 4435 Old Frankfort Pike, are 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tue.-Fri.; noon-5 p.m. Sat., Sun. Admission is $7 for adults, $5 for senior citizens and student, free for ages 5 and younger. For more information call (859) 255-6653 or visit www. headley-whitney.org.