Hello Gorgeous!
gif by meAn actress and singer of Barbra Streisand's caliber couldn't wear just anything to the Oscars, you see, and she even admitted as much in an interview with W magazine in 2016. She had two dress options: "One was lovely, but very conservative," she said, and the other was this iconic sequin pantsuit by designer Arnold Scaasi.
"I had no idea that when the lights hit that outfit, it would become transparent! I wanted a white collar and cuffs, which it had, and I wore my hair under my chin, because I thought to myself, I’m going to win two Oscars in my lifetime, and I’ll be more conservative next time."
How's that for a prediction? Not only did she win Best Actress in 1968 for her role as Fanny Brice in Funny Girl (famously tied with Katharine Hepburn that year for The Lion in Winter), but she won again in 1976 for Best Original Song for 'Evergreen' from the remake of A Star is Born.
It must be said though, that the gown she wore to collect her second Oscar was anything but conservative, but who cares when the diva's just so fabulous?
Scaasi recalled in his memoirs,
Women I Have Dressed and Undressed, seeing a voluminous black caped dress that Babs was originally going to wear to the Oscars and commenting that he was horrified by the dress, exclaiming that she looked like a character out of
Gone with the Wind.
"'I think,' I continued, looking at Barbra, 'it is very important since the world has only seen you in two films and in both all dressed up in fussy period costumes, that you appear at the awards looking like the contemporary young woman you are (she was barely twenty-five). We have to do something really modern…really of today….I think the cape thing is all wrong.' Everyone but Barbra seemed disappointed. The cape vanished. I immediately started working on sketches that were in a contemporary vein."
Scassi's design leaned towards the contemporary, giving her bell bottoms to reflect the modern pant trend, and when standing still, looked like a trumpet skirt. "The top was a straight overblouse of sheer embroidered fabric with two patch pockets covering her breasts. It was finished with the basic white collar and cuffs and black satin bow at the neckline. There was nothing overtly sexual about the outfit. In fact, it was insouciant."
The duo were aware that the pantsuit appeared nude under lights, but they didn't quite grasp just how nude Babs would look under the intense Oscar lighting; though he was quick to clear up that even though it appears she's nude underneath, you're not seeing skin, you're seeing the lining.
Babs kept her Oscar dress in storage until 2003, when she auctioned it off with a bunch of her iconic clothing, to benefit her Streisand Foundation. Scassi placed the winning bid. He would later donate it, along with other iconic designs and his sketchbooks, to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, where it went on public display in 2011.
In 2015, Scassi passed away and Babs released a statement: "Arnold was a wonderful designer who knew how to combine fantasy and craftsmanship. He made many fabulous outfits for me over the years and unfortunately, only one of them stole the headlines."
I don't know when I started watching the Oscars -- it's been a tradition in my home for what seems like forever -- but I remember Barbra Streisand's pantsuit like it was yesterday. Thank you for this interesting post about her unique outfit and the behind-the-thread story!
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