The designer defined the glory days of 90s style with a wit that made him every supermodel\u2019s best friend. As he gears up for a new cabaret show, he\u2019s as outspoken as ever<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a lot to look at in Isaac Mizrahi\u2019s studio in New York\u2019s Greenwich Village: sketches, bulletin boards, fabrics, memorabilia, heaps of books, a Golden Girls puzzle set. But my eyes lock in on two dolls, Snoopy and his sister Belle (who knew!), clad in ballet-style tutus and embroidered vests. \u201cI think I designed those,\u201d he says, joining me from his apartment upstairs. \u201cI love the Schultz estate and they like me a lot. It was a minute ago, though, so I\u2019m not sure if they still even know who I am.\u201d I later learn he created them for a 2014 exhibition at the New Museum, in an example of the symbiotic relationship with pop culture the designer has been nurturing since his childhood in Brooklyn. When we meet, he\u2019s busy working on one of its other facets, firming up the setlist for Hooray!, his latest cabaret act in New York. It runs for four nights at 54 Below, a midtown venue, this month.<\/p>\n
\u201cI say it all the time,\u201d he says of the cheery title. With his lit-from-within smile, you believe it. The slight twist is the source of that cheer. Mizrahi has held two New York residencies for the past decade or so \u2013 winter at the Carlyle hotel, summer at 54 Below \u2013 but he\u2019s not a fan of the hotter season, finding July to be \u201cjust the nadir of the world\u201d. The happy mood of his upcoming show derives from the knowledge that, come August, the summer\u2019s almost over. Another reason for him to celebrate is the departure of World Cup crowds from the city, which will make it into his act\u2019s version of Cole Porter\u2019s You\u2019re the Top that he updates every year. (He can\u2019t immediately recall the lyric, but it rhymes \u201cSpanish\u201d with \u201cmannish.\u201d)<\/p>\n
Primarily known as a fashion designer thanks to his vivid collections in the 80s and 90s and a slew of television projects that showcased his gregariousness (Time magazine called him \u201ca kind of Seventh Avenue Oscar Wilde\u201d), Mizrahi\u2019s relationship to the stage goes back decades, and he\u2019s been performing solo acts consistently since his off-Broadway debut at the nearby Greenwich House Theatre in 2000. Especially since scaling back his couture career, the 64-year-old says he\u2019d like to also be known as a performer. \u201cTo think that I went to High School of Performing Arts before I was in fashion \u2026 \u201d he trails off, referencing his icon-incubating alma mater, memorialized in the film Fame. (He had a small part in the movie.) \u201cI feel like I do this and I do clothes, which is crazy because the perception is not at all that. The perception is that I am a fashion designer.\u201d But he believes his performances have sharpened and, over time, lowered raised eyebrows.<\/p>\n
As Mizrahi\u2019s designs blossomed into his eponymous fashion line in the late 80s, theatre never remained far away. He has fond memories of attending New York\u2019s 2006 Sweeney Todd revival as Elaine Stritch\u2019s date, and quotes the Broadway grande dame every few minutes. At one point, he pauses our conversation to straighten up three videotapes on his desk, which he plainly explains were sent by his close friend Stephen Sondheim. One is a VHS of Sondheim\u2019s musical Evening Primrose, appropriately set at a department store. Stuffed into the sleeve is a typed note from the composer poking fun at Mizrahi for being on his way to owning his \u201cComplete Works\u201d. Sondheim\u2019s reaction upon learning he hadn\u2019t seen the rare TV production, he tells me, was a naughtily affected \u201cDarling \u2026 \u201d It\u2019s hard to imagine Sondheim camp it up like that, but in Mizrahi\u2019s world, everyone is divine.<\/p>\n
Mizrahi made his Broadway debut with a three-week stint in Chicago back in 2022, and I ask about his current theater-going diet. Perhaps my phrasing is unclear, or he simply picks up on that last word and runs with it. \u201cWell, wait a minute, I started on a GLP-1 about five weeks ago, and I\u2019m so thin already,\u201d he beams. I follow his excited lead. \u201cI had a suit made over Covid,\u201d he goes on, \u201cthis kind of silvery, lam\u00e9 suit that I had made for my first residency back at 54 Below \u2013 and it never fit.\u201d He\u2019s giddy to finally break the outfit out of the bag in which it\u2019s been resting.<\/p>\n
Having read his 2019 memoir (the perfectly titled I.M.), I know that body image has long been a concern for Mizrahi. With the weight-loss drug boom some five years behind us, why the wait? \u201cI\u2019d been waiting to see if everyone grows, like, an arm,\u201d he deadpans. \u201cI mean it! Also, the more I try to diet, the more I go crazy and don\u2019t diet, so I keep putting weight on that way.\u201d What about the required maintenance? \u201cI\u2019m fine with that if I reach some kind of goal. I have some pants hanging over there that I got out of storage, and if I can get back in those, darling, I will never eat again.\u201d<\/p>\n
I repeat my original question. \u201cOh, I try to see every show. I try to see every damn thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Next month, a 4K restoration of Mizrahi\u2019s 1995 film Unzipped will open in the US, injecting the glamour of the peak supermodel years into our corporate Shein landscape. A terrific document of process, fashion and personality, the Sundance winner charts his 1994 fall collection from inception to runway, with a cavalcade of cameos from Naomi Campbell and Eartha Kitt to Kate Moss and Liza Minnelli, each fabulously in step with the designer\u2019s wit and style. With textured black-and-white photography and backstage footage of legends bopping about to house music, it is a perfect capsule of 90s chic \u2013 both the final gasp of unreachable 20th century celebrity and the first breath of all-access relatability.<\/p>\n
Despite its success, it fell into something of a copyright purgatory and went largely unavailable, lending a coveted aura to the DVD bootlegs and files that circulated. The film was directed by his then-partner Douglas Keeve, evincing a vulnerability from its subject that he didn\u2019t sense during the shoot \u201cbecause it was my boyfriend just rolling tapes, taking this footage\u201d. (\u201cWhy would you show me this? It\u2019s like you get some cruel pleasure out of it,\u201d Mizrahi cries in a scene where an employee reveals that Jean Paul Gaultier\u2019s latest line beat him to the same source of inspiration.)<\/p>\n
Whereas early watches would prompt self-critical reactions about his weight or appearance, he says the viewing experience now is far sweeter, and more nostalgic: \u201cLook how thin and cute you look.\u201d Working to secure the rights for re-release became a project of posterity, \u201csimply because it\u2019s a big landmark in my life and a big part of what I think of as my legacy\u201d.<\/p>\n
Mizrahi had established himself as a megawatt talent by the time of the documentary\u2019s filming in 1994, with his eponymous label bankrolled by Chanel starting two years before. But the no-holds-barred access we\u2019ve come to expect in the era of reality TV, not to mention the toting around of film equipment \u201cwas so uncomfortable and gauche\u201d, he says, looking aghast. \u201cIn Paris? Oh my god, to have a camera crew following you with John Galliano and Andr\u00e9 [Leon] Talley was mortifying.\u201d What drove him was a genuine love for the world he\u2019d created for himself, which he didn\u2019t often encounter elsewhere in the fashion world: \u201cI just thought, \u2018My fittings are hilarious, someone has got to get this.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was, for me, the best part of the movie, talking to Christy [Turlington] or Shalom [Harlow] in a fitting room,\u201d Mizrahi continues. \u201cSo I was ready to bear the rest of it based on how much I love the idea of someone capturing this for posterity.\u201d<\/p>\n
While a student at Parsons School of Design, he worked part-time for New York designer Perry Ellis. \u201cIt was the greatest thing in the world, because he was very funny,\u201d he says. \u201cAll the people in the studio were hilarious, and when they liked something, they would say, \u2018Oh my god, this is hilarious.\u2019 That\u2019s how they would describe a beautiful dress.\u201d That \u201cslightly whimsical, never boring\u201d atmosphere embedded itself into Mizrahi, who kept a light atmosphere at his label, which closed in 1998. \u201cI feel like if I followed in anybody\u2019s footsteps, it was in Perry Ellis\u2019 footsteps. Not if,\u201d he corrects himself. \u201cYes, I did, and I took it one step further and really tried to be very funny.\u201d<\/p>\n
What excites him most about Unzipped\u2019s re-release is the chance to revisit what he views as a bygone era. \u201cIn those days, fashion was a scene, and now it\u2019s a scene but in a different way,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s a very corporate thing where you pay people to come to your show; you have a lot of control over it. In those days it was completely out of control.\u201d Thousands of people crammed into tiny spaces, fire department be damned, and sometimes, as in spring 1992, the power would simply go out mid-show. But, he rhapsodizes, \u201cit was great, and all of a sudden Madonna would come, or Robert De Niro or Prince\u201d.<\/p>\n