ARNOLD SCAASI DONATES COLLECTION TO MFA BOSTON

The famed fashion designer Arnold Scaasi has gifted Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts more than one hundred pieces of clothing from his fifty-three-year career, including ball gowns, cocktail dresses, suits, and coats, reports Jill Radsken for the Boston Herald. He also has sold the museum some eighty scrapbooks of sketches, reviews, and commentary from his successful ready-to-wear and couture businesses. “I’m not going to be one of seven hundred designers. I’ll be one of seventy,” said Scaasi via phone from his New York salon earlier this week. “It’s one of the four finest museums in America.” Indeed, Pam Parmal, the MFA’s curator of textile and fashion arts, called the Scaasi acquisition “a big moment for us.” “It really represents his career, as well as changes in fashion,” she said. “He’s very happy to see the work stay together and come to the MFA and be accessible to people.” Fashion followers in the Hub also will be elated about the museum’s acquisition of Kenneth Paul Block’s archive. Block, who died last month, is considered one of the most influential illustrators of the twentieth century. His gift to the museum includes more eighteen hundred sketchbooks and illustrations of a range of designers including Yves Saint Laurent, Halston, and Geoffrey Beene.