When Isaac Mizrahi showed up to the screening of Unzipped yesterday as part of the “Model as Muse” film series at the Met, he was dressed in black with one exception—his toes. “Cantaloupe,” he said looking down at his bared toenails. “They look brighter in this light.”
Mizrahi had the audience laughing from that first unconventional opening and continued to entertain throughout the short discussion of the film, his past, and his present. The film itself gives viewers a chance to see the process of creating a collection with Mizrahi. Throwing the door wide open on the fashion world that many only have had the chance to peek at from the sidelines of one of his shows.
With things caught on film like his convincing renditions of the Mary Tyler Moore Show theme song, his comical conversations with his mother, and his sometimes depressing, sometimes elating experiences walking down the streets of New York reading reviews the day after his show, Mizrahi seems like less of a fashion god and more real.
A “real” fashion god who was surrounded in the film by young versions of now-supermodels Naomi Campbell, Shalom Harlow, and Christy Turlington to name a few. “I was working with them and they were nobodies then and suddenly they were somebodies and I was starting my company. I kind of just asked, ‘Oh, girls, want to be in my show?,’ and yes, yes they did.”
Since Mizrahi’s relationships with the girls was more than just business, he worked a little differently with them. “It’s like these girls were my friends, they were not models to me and in the beginning I didn’t pay them—I just gave them clothes for a long time. So for the longest time my accountant was saying, ‘Pay the girls. It’s way better to pay them,’ and I didn’t care. I preferred the girls to have the clothes because it was meaningful.”
Still, just because Mizrahi saw models as more than just a pretty face doesn’t mean he didn’t have a good eye for them. “Calvin [Klein] had a studio on 39th Street and one time…I was going up to work and in the elevator was Linda Evangelista in a top hat, like this little Patricia Underwood top hat, and I was like, Who is that girl? I ran up and they said, ‘We just didn’t like her,’ and I said, ‘Excuse me, that girl is coming back.’”
He has come a long way since that day in Calvin Klein’s studio, as he’s currently working with Liz Claiborne, which he says he really enjoys. “I really do like it a lot. It’s really fun because I love the history of her company…. If you look at the archives of that company, first of all there are very few pieces around, but the best piece of archive is her.”
Mizrahi knows as well as anyone that fashion is always changing, but to him three things keep you from going out of style: “I think it’s all about basic, basic things, like if your hair is right and your shoes are right and your underwear is right. Those are three very, very important things.”
When Mizrahi looked back on where he has been, for the first time all night he seemed to be at a loss for words. Running his hand through his hair he looked up at the audience. “I didn’t realize it at the time,” he said. “You don’t realize things when you are going through them.” ~ Jane Adams
