LOS ANGELES — Eletra Casadei, the California fashion designer whose prom dresses put away the Sweet Sixteen look and moved into strapless, backless, slit-to-there styles, has died. She was 55.
She died Sept. 27 at her home in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Pacific Palisades. The cause was brain cancer, said her sister, Andrea Casadei Best.
One of the first Los Angeles designers of her generation to gain a national reputation for something other than swimwear, Casadei claimed Old Hollywood glamour as her inspiration and fantasy dresses at affordable prices as her niche.
She introduced her TD4 (To Die For) line in the late 1970s for customers ages 14 and up. Before long, their mothers were wearing the clothes, and she launched a second collection, Casadei, for them. By the early 1980s, a boom time for flaunt-it fashion, Casadei was in her stride.
“Padded shoulders, draping, appliques, sequins — Eletra’s evening dresses were over the top and a lot of fun,” said Pam Roberts, the designer’s former publicist.
Throughout the 1980s, Casadei’s collections were carried in about 7,000 boutiques and department stores, most of them in the U.S. Prices ranged from about $100 to about $400.
A former fashion model, she wore her own designs and added a few accents, like plum color streaks in her hair and iridescent fuchsia nail polish.
Dresses from her collections turned up on television sitcoms and soap operas as diverse as “Golden Girls” and “Dynasty.”
Casadei’s best advertisements were the two fashion-music videos she created in the mid-1980s, modeled after the music videos that aired on MTV. Instead of costumes, she used dresses from her latest collection.
Casadei scaled back her operation in the ’90s but became known for her remakes of popular celebrity dresses at the Academy Award shows.
Her version of the vintage Valentino gown that actress Julia Roberts wore in 2001 sold for $169.
Most recently, she designed under the Casadei by Eletra Casadei label and owned a boutique in Pacific Palisades where she sold her ready-to- wear styles and made custom-order clothes. She continued working until recently.
