Isaac Mizrahi is a True Original

It is rare to meet a man who is just as comfortable with A-list stars as he is making unique cocktail recipes in his kitchen to post on social media. His engaging wit and wisdom come across as if he intends it just for your ears, instead of his six-figure online followers. Isaac Mizrahi is that man and much more. His storied career as a top fashion designer, stage and screen actor, producer, and television personality will be an open book for those attending the Fashion Meets Art event at Vero Beach Museum of Art February 18.

Mizrahi knew at an early age that he was artistic. He attended the Fiorello LaGuardia High School for the Performing Arts and Parsons School of Design in New York. “At the end of every year at Parsons, we would have a fashion show,” says Mizrahi. “I had worked like crazy on some very intricate pieces with beading. I made a cashmere coat, a hand-pleated skirt—it was really something.” When it came time to accessorize, the shoes on offer came from a shared closet at Parsons. Far from settling for something everyone else had, Mizrahi took the reins. “There were two well-worn pairs of black-and-bone-colored pumps in that closet, and that was it.”

Mizrahi had a close friend at Parsons, and the two hatched a plan. “Peter Speliopoulos, who went on to work with Donna Karan for years in the ’90s, and I decided we would buy a pair of Manolo Blahnik shoes, which at the time were more than $400, and use them just on our models.” The fashions stood out from the competition in the best way and stoked Mizrahi’s design ambitions. In 1987, just five years after graduating, he launched his own fashion line, which was lauded for its creative edge and beautiful tailoring.

Living in New York helped shape Mizrahi’s view of fashion and art. Throughout his adult life, he made personal connections that gave him a wide circle of famous friends. “Meryl Streep was my neighbor for a time,” he says. “I ran into her the week she had agreed to star in The Devil Wears Prada, and she said to me, ‘Oh, Isaac, what have I done?’ She smiled and asked me to take a look at the script.”

The movie had been adapted from the book of the same name, which was a thinly veiled biography of Anna Wintour during her Vogue reign. Mizrahi wanted to check all the boxes, so he reached out to his friend Anna. “When we had lunch together the following week, I told her about seeing Meryl. I asked Anna if she would mind if I looked at the script,” he recalls. “Anna just laughed and said, ‘Yes, by all means.’ She is a savvy woman who knows the power of film, and this one was much anticipated. Meryl’s team followed through and I made a couple of notes.”

This year’s Fashion Meets Art crowd will be treated to a seasoned entertainer who is authentically himself. “Isaac Mizrahi has been on our short list for a few years,” notes Gregory Ness-Vasko, who chairs the fundraiser for the museum. “He’s so gregarious, outgoing, intelligent, and quick off the cuff. He has a vast knowledge of the arts, of literature and pop culture—Isaac is a true modern-day Renaissance man.”

This event supports diverse programs at VBMA, ensuring accessibility for the entire community. Teens and young adults with different learning needs find engagement and support through hands-on art projects, and veterans learn principles of art and design while exploring stories of service. Summer art camps and tours for school-age children expose youngsters to art at a high level in their own community. “We need to be able to have children experiencing art and all it offers, instead of just on a screen,” says Ness-Vasko.

Television is a natural medium for Mizrahi, who hosted his own talk show for seven years on the Oxygen network. He also had a seven-year run as a judge on Project Runway All Stars, a gig he wasn’t sure he wanted at first. “It’s not in my nature to think about speed when I’m sewing,” he laughs. “I’m more inclined to take three days and make a perfect sleeve.” Mizrahi had to temper his reactions to the designers’ pieces at times. “It was hard for me to be tactful, but this is a show where the designers are learning. I am polite, but I’m also quite critical, so I had to sit on that a little to be more nurturing. It was a good lesson for me.”

When Mizrahi held his first fashion shows, the kind of expert help available to the designers on Project Runway was nowhere to be found. “It was fun but hectic,” he notes. “We did everything. There were no producers, no stylists. I was the producer. Me and my assistants made the model cards, we set up the racks, we pressed the clothes.”

The fashion shows of today from the top designers are multimedia productions that sometimes overshadow the actual clothing. “Now, if you have 70 outfits to show, you might have 70 models,” says Mizrahi. “At my early shows, I’d have 20 models for 80 passes down the runway. The girls wore five or six different things, and if you were Naomi Campbell or Christy
Turlington, two of my favorites, you wore eight or ten things.”

Mizrahi wanted to be in control of the look from head to toe. “I had the last look before the models went out on the runway. Later, when stylists became ubiquitous, it was more challenging for me to pass on that responsibility,” he says. “I like to be involved in every aspect.” Whether viewing video of his acclaimed 1994 collection, which was documented in the Sundance award-winning film Unzipped, or eyeing his flattering fashions for today, one notices the commonalities: exquisite tailoring and the artistic color and pattern combinations that express his creativity.

From his time working with Richard Avedon on a photo shoot with Audrey Hepburn wearing Mizrahi’s swing coat design, to dressing Meryl Streep for her American Film Institute Lifetime Achievement Award, to his long and successful run making collections for Target, Mizrahi has proved that style in fashion, and in life, is attainable for anyone at any price point.

At this year’s Fashion Meets Art event, expect his treasure trove of stories to be brought to vibrant, unabashed life.