The words colour, fantasy and glamour are invariably used when describing a Scassi creation. The same words can be employed as aptly in a chronicle of his career, and a life which has led from snowy Montreal to a year of antipodean contrasts in Australia; cruising through the warmth and colour of the South Pacific on the way, to the heady days of postwar Paris and back to North America and a future in New York fashion.

Arnold Scaasi is the last of New York's custom designers. Others make clothes to order but Scassi designs an original couture collection twice a year which he presents to clients and the fashion press in the tradition of the great Parisian couture houses. More importantly, he is a true couturier in that he realises couture is not meant to dress everyone. He tempts and titillates wealthy women with all the luxurious materials available and in doing os is one of these people responsible for keeping all the artistry of high fashion alive. Even his name reflects his commitment to glamour - he reversed the spelling of the original Isaacs to capture the more exotic sound so in keeping with his clothes.

Scassi was drawing and painting by the age of three, but it was not until he was fifteen that he took the first steps along the road that would lead to his career as a couturier. Leaving his home town of Montreal he travelled with his sister to San Francisco and boarded a ship bound for Australia, where he would live with an aunt and complete his final year of high school.

His aunt Ida, originally married in London to one of the Sassoons, had been windowed early and her subsequent travels led her to Australia where she met and married a Mr. Wynn - well known to Australians in the context of Wynn's Wines and Liqueurs. (His son and grandson now operate the Mount Adam winery in South Australia)

Melbourne in the forties was experiencing something of a cultural boom, reflecting the ample leisure time of a flourishing economy. The A.B.C. was promoting the establishment of a symphony orchestra in each state capital and organising visits by international music celebrities. A small amount of European films were beginning to reach Australia and post-war migrants were making impressive contributions in the fields of culture and fine art.

In the midst of all this, Aunt Ida appears to have been most prominent. A very definite woman, she ran an extraordinary household in Toorak and Scaasi was introduced to the likes of Isaac Stern, Yehudi Menuhin and Joan Sutherland (whom he later dressed in New York).

The year in Melbourne was profoundly influential on Scaasi's life. "Coming from Montreal, which was really quite provincial then, it was a very glamorous life," he recalls. "My aunt was a woman who dressed in Channel and Schiaparellim so I always had that background of wonderful clothes. At fifteen I was thrown into a whole different world - the experience was extraordinary and I became, I suppose, sophisticated at a very early age.

Ida was responsible not only for the introduction of glamour, into his life she also forced they young Scaasi to make some decisions about his future. Together they plotted a course, deciding upon commercial art and a career in advertising as the first option.

Scassi hated commercial art and between he and Ida it was decided he would become a dress designer instead. Man years later, he still speaks in amazement of a city with inner-city beaches, and remembers Australians as warm and friendly, but it was time to leave Melbourne and he returned to Montreal and enrolled at the prestigious Cotnoir-Caponni School of Design.

Almost immediately his talents surfaced. "I was a very good technician, I loved draping, I created unusual shapes and I had a very special colour sense. It all came out very early, from the minute I began to do the courses really." More than these attributes it was his originality that singled him out from the other students, and by the end of his second year, people were clamouring for a Scassi design. One of his professors reported: "A student must cope before he creates, but this was not the case for Scassi.

He would start copying and end by improvising. His finished model did not resemble the original at all. he was truly creative." Scassi finished the three year course in just twenty-seven months.

From Montreal it was on to Europe. Paris in the early fifties was an exciting time. During the war, London's "Daily Mail" had polled readers on which war time hardship they minded most. The most common answer surprised everyone - "Women in Uniform", came the reply. Fashion houses worked quickly to dispel memories of wartime privations and shortages, using rich fabrics decorated with a riot of beading, embroidery, laces and braids. Dior had launched his ultra-feminine "New Look" in the spring of '47 to thunderous applause, and couturier and customer alike delighted in a fashion that rivalled those created by Worth and Pacquin at the turn of the century for opulence and elegance.

Scaasi was in the midst of it all, studying at the Chambre Syndicate de la Haute Couture Parisienne, revelling in the revival of glamour. "The Couturier had come back into its own after the war. It was a marvellous time for clothes; it was the last moment when people were glamorously attired and weren't afraid to get dressed up.

"It shaped me enormously. As a student at the Chambre Syndicate one went to all the shows' to see a Dior collection or a Balenciaga collection at that time was completely, totally inspiring."

In fact it was Dior who encouraged him to return to America, even though he was prepared to offer the young Scaasi an apprenticeship the following season. "Dior said to me, 'Arnold if you have the chance to work in America, why stay in Europe? America is where the future of fashion is, and it would be an extraordinary experience for you."

Following the zeitgeist and Dior's timely advice, Scaasi went to New York in 1953. At the time there was a dearth of designers; specialty stores, and major department stores like Bergdorf-Goodman all had departments that made clothes to order, but the idea was that the manufacturers went to Paris, bought the models, then returned to America and copied them. Scaasi was introduced to Charles James, one of the few designers upholding couture standards in America. James, noted for his innovative shapes and cutting techniques, offered Scaasi a job that first day in New York. Scaasi laughs as he recalls how stunned he was by the "enormous sum of $45 a week that James offered.

By 1957 Scaasi was ready to strike out on his own. With $2,000 in savings, a seamstress, a tailor and a small studio in Manhattan he opened a fledgling business. Rather reluctantly it seems, he started with ready-to-wear; all the signs were pointing to its predominance in the fashion area. "Ready-to-wear then was... well, not boring but you never felt that you could make a couture dress for ready-to-wear. Still, that's what I did' I went to Europe and bought my fabrics the same way the couturier did. My collections were very glamourous, the fashions were very beautiful, and whilst they didn't follow Paris, they were not the regular run-of-the-mill American clothes."

Within two years, he had won the Coty Fashion Critics Award, the N.B.C. - T.V. "Today" award, the Neiman-Marcus Award and three Chicago "Gold Coast" Fashion awards. His business flourished and Scaasi ready-to-wear could be found in more than two hundred top specialty shops and department stores.

It was in 1964 that Scaasi made one of his most important moves - the decision to return to made-to-order design. The jubilation is still evident in his voice as he recalls the success of his venture. "I began my couture house at a time everyone else was closing theirs, and people told me that it would never work. But I believed in it very strongly, I felt that there was too much street fashion and that women who wanted really special, really beautiful clothes were unable to find them in America. Somebody had to do it for them."

Those women who did want special, beautiful clothes include Barbara Streisand, Mitzi Gaynor, Polly Bergen and Diahann Carroll - all the starts of the late 50's and early 60's. Nowadays his clients include Barbara Bush, lady Fairfax, Princess Yasmin, Aga Khan, Elizabeth Taylor, Barbara Sinatra and Mary Tyler Moore.

What keeps these women returning to Scaasi's pale grey salon on Fifth Avenue? Are his dramatic creations deliberately aimed at American women who takes great delight in flaunting their wealth? Scaasi laughs, "My clothes are always overstated because I like it. I think that when a woman comes into a room she should be noticed. I don't like wall flowers."

He struggles to name the women he most enjoys dressing. "I have lots of favourites. I'm very lucky, I dress a very interesting group of people, and of course when you begin to dress a woman you become her friend.

"Very early in my career I began dressing very glamorous women. I suppose, when I started to dress the First lady, that amazed me. I'd been dressing her for two years before she became First Lady. We met at a dinner party at the White House and that's how it all started. I was also both thrilled and surprised when Elizabeth Taylor called and asked me to make her some clothes."

Scaasi readily concedes that his glittering clients make for a more interesting career but points out that most of the time couture is simply a lot of hard work. His Ready-To-Wear returned five years ago as the Scaasi Boutique Collection and he is kept busy designing ten collections a year, including fur and bridal. "There comes a moment when I have put everything aside and just design that collection coming up."

November will see the launch of Scaasi perfume. In conjunction with Revlon he has chosen a scent and worked on the packaging: a black, gold, emerald and shocking pink bottle.

"If I have any complaint about my life and I really think I have a most extraordinary life, the one thing that I don't seem to have is enough time for myself. But I'm so grateful and happy that I've come to this point where a lot of people are slowing down and I seem to be getting started again." Scaasi claims his work leaves him no time for hobbies, but he still loves to travel and usually spends some time in Capri and Acapulco or Palm Beach each year. His devotion to beauty carries over into his private life with a major interest in twentieth century art. He has an impressive collection including works by Picaaso, Monet, Leger and Brueghel.

Right now Scaasi is riding the crest of a new wave of interest in beautiful clothes and as such a U.S. fashion magazine recently reported that Scaasi was "in again - for about the tenth time!" Arnold Scaasi knows why: "A Scaasi dress is a dress that is beautiful and very pretty. It is not a serious dress. I want them to be flattering. I want them to have a sensual look about them. I don't want them to be boring everyday clothes. My collections have always been very original and they have always had a lot of fantasy in them. Basically, I've always wanted women to look glamorous and wear show-stopping clothes."

Sentiments of which I'm sure Aunt Ida would approve.