00:00right i don't get out of bed for under 30 grand now that's the famous quote it felt like she
00:04had
00:04all this confidence i bet she was a wreck through the whole thing i'm isaac mizrahi and you're
00:10watching the hollywood reporter hi i'm merle ginsburg here for the hollywood reporter and
00:16i'm with one of my not just favorite people but favorite designers favorite singers and the star
00:21of unzipped coming out for the first time in i think 32 years isaac mizrahi hi oh it's so
00:29great to see you when i met you 32 years ago i was working at women's wear you were very
00:36theatrical
00:36but you weren't mr showbiz because you were doing fashion it's like you're all around
00:43mr entertainer now you know what i'm trying that i'm trying to be and and you know i think you
00:49know
00:50merle that like my life started as an actor as a performer i started making puppets when i was like
00:57seven years old i started doing female impersonations when i was like you know eight
01:01years old and you know so i was a big ham i went to performing arts high school and then
01:05i kind of
01:06chickened out i figured i would never get cast because i don't look like robert redford or paul
01:11newman you know boris lermontov from the red shoes i've always wanted to be that character you know
01:17he sort of finishes with people and says good morning good morning in control you know he's
01:22totally in control he's very sort of severe but then you're in marty supreme you're an actor you
01:28do your own show you sing you dance you're everything you know i've been doing roles in
01:33movies and tv like for as long as i can remember i started working you know at 88 i don't
01:38know if
01:39you remember that club in new york 88 i mean it was just like a little gig that i had
01:42with ben and
01:43i didn't know you did that yeah and then i worked at joe's pub and you know so i've been
01:47doing this
01:47for like a very very long time every single thing is frustrating except designing clothes i get this
01:54gesture in my head and from there i just do all these millions of sketches about that one gesture
01:59the movie is so iconic now and it really kicked off a whole genre of film and so many things
02:07have
02:07followed there's one coming out every minute now do you have any idea that it could turn into this
02:15um you know i i have to say something in the making of this movie years and years ago there
02:22are so many
02:23things that i that i remember and that i don't remember but i do remember douglas working on it
02:29forever it was he was filming this movie for years like for three or four years you know but in
02:36the
02:36interim you had well you had for instance uh truth or dare came out also prêt-à-porter which was
02:42a
02:42robert altman picture came out there were a million things we thought would completely throw our chances
02:49of success with the smoothie off but in fact everything worked in our favor and i do think
02:55we at least truth or dare and unzipped i think we did influence a lot of stuff you know that
03:02was before
03:02reality tv i'm not kidding you know and this was actually like fast and funny and fun so as
03:11documentaries go oh there is a wallpaper in that back i would kill for a swatch of that wallpaper
03:17i'm sure donna karen have like a poll watching it again i've seen it many times i forgot that it
03:24was
03:24so kind of really a documentary in that it's just following you everywhere it is so spontaneous
03:31you'll start singing and dancing your mother shows up and there is a through line of the review
03:37but it's very off the cuff i think that's what makes it so charming and you know what i think
03:42it's i think it bears speaking i think i'm glad you brought this up because like we had darling we
03:48had no idea what this movie was going to be about no idea you know and then in the shooting
03:53it became
03:54pretty obvious like oh right got it we didn't know that it would be about oh he got a bad
03:58review and
03:59he gets a good review and it's a big success we didn't know that at all i think that was
04:03a big
04:04part of why it has the kind of the taste that you you're talking about you know when you made
04:11the
04:11collection that women's wear gave a bad review of i guess it's always shocking what the response is
04:18whether it's good or it's bad yeah and and i think like every creative person watching or listening
04:25to us will agree with this you know you don't do it because you think you can you know charm
04:33critics
04:33you don't do it because you think people will like it or not you do it because it's the vision
04:38you have
04:38for something and you do it because you can't not do it it's like it's i get it inevitable you
04:45know
04:45it's inevitable yeah so nanook of the north like what was it about that film that made you want to
04:51do
04:52fur pants well it was nanook of the north it was call of the wild like suddenly i was just
04:58watching
04:58and i'm not really sure what that's about you know i did not go to at the time like kim's
05:05video
05:05or something or blockbuster or wherever the hell you used to go for your videos you remember you
05:10remember darling this is way before you could get everything on netflix now when you started this
05:14collection that is in the film it was an amazing collection and it was a great contradiction in
05:21that you had these big colorful furs and these tiny little dresses were you thinking when you were
05:27filming i should make this really dramatic for the film or no no no i mean you know the best
05:35collections
05:35i do are like sort of thinking you see the thinking that happens in them and this is how i
05:43always work
05:44i always start by thinking of a very kind of melancholic gray world and brown and neutral and then
05:54i build on that and then it becomes this kind of explosive thing it's almost like built like an orgasm
06:00you know it starts with this little thoughts and then it gets bigger and bigger and then the
06:04and you got to get some ending in there right boom right so so that's what that always is you
06:10know that was the first collection i ever showed exactly that formula you know where it was like
06:15gray and brown and heaven and gorgeous and very controlled and losing control and losing control and
06:20then completely mad by the end you know you're the star of the movie the collection is the star of
06:25the movie but the scrim is really the star of the movie yeah yeah yeah yeah and i asked nina
06:31like
06:32did you plan that she said well you were thinking about it and you see that in the movie you're
06:35thinking about a scrim she said that there was no rehearsal with the scrim no there was no rehearsal
06:40with the scrim absolutely it's so beautifully theatrical i know i know i owe that i expect to a
06:47really good lighting person who was listening you know because the scrim is a is a reaction to light
06:52right you either can see through it or you can't and there were moments when we didn't show through and
06:57there were moments when it actually happened which made the impact so much even more you know right
07:02fabulous than it was you know and nina claims that i that i wanted to do it without a scrim
07:08i just wanted
07:09to see everything you know yeah yeah but that's definitely not true that is 100 not true i i thought
07:16of the scrim immediately because i thought it was such a controlled environment you know you're talking to
07:21kate and linda and you're saying i'm going to do this thing and you're going to be changing and most
07:25of them
07:26said no i know and then they did it anyway well you know what and then one of them i
07:31think it was
07:32cindy said yes and the minute cindy said yes everyone goes oh yeah if she's doing it i'm doing
07:37you know it is darling you know it is with us creative types one person goes yes and then
07:42everybody goes yes have you ever been to the garden for a game and like sit sit in the front
07:45row no it's
07:46so i'll go i'll go and these guys are like gods so funny that i know this whole different world
07:51world which is which is fun i mean it's fun to not only know once i went to um those
07:57models were
07:58spectacularly beautiful and had big personalities i think that's going to bring a lot of people to see
08:04the movie in theatrical release i do too i was so shocked when the movie came out because i didn't
08:11realize that there were other people in the movie like i thought it was just about you know it's like
08:15oh my
08:15god people are going to think i'm insane it's such this revealing portrait of me and then really i
08:20think it's a movie about linda naomi cindy christy veronica manna all those people who were in the
08:28movie i think probably they came to see it to see those women and not to see me yeah absolutely
08:34absolutely a lesson in humility darling a lesson in humility when your co-stars
08:41are the ones who bring in the audience yeah yeah but it's a story about you and i'm sure what
08:46did
08:46you think of the reviews when they came out one that i remember was rex reed didn't like it and
08:51he called me her he didn't like anything he used the word her suit like hairy like i'm hairy and
08:57i'm
08:57the least i have absolutely no body hair so i mean literally i am completely smooth i think he meant
09:02there was a scene in the movie where i'm getting my hair cut and it's i have a lot of
09:06hair on my head
09:07but that's basically i know rex reed didn't like it like at the time i was so like engrossed
09:14and freaked out about the clothes and the shows and my business you know did the movie help sell that
09:23collection no because i think the movie came out later you know what i mean the collection was not
09:31in the store the collections which came and went you know and also like you know the thing about the
09:36thing i the thing that's ironic to me about that movie is that it's a portrait of a person who
09:42really is obsessed with reviews right like oh my god i got a bad review i got a good review
09:48hooray you
09:48know but the thing is i only cared about reviews in that they would affect the way buyers sure come
09:58to
09:58the showroom and buy the collection right if women's wear loved it and the times loved it you're in you
10:03know you have a great season one of the great moments is probably one of the worst moments for
10:08you which is nina walking in and showing you women's wear daily review of jean paul gautier show
10:16and it was eskimos yeah and i'm will never understand how that happened never i mean this was like the
10:24whole show outside of yourself and the supermodels the major figure in unzipped is your mother and
10:32listening to your book and you're talking about your mother so much and how she influenced everything
10:37you did yeah it's so intimate though i know and it bothers me it does it bothers me because i
10:46don't
10:46know it's like such a private private thing one's relationship with one's mother and so it's like sort
10:51of right there for everybody to see you know i know the real story i hope that it comes across
10:57as
10:58something beautiful it does it does and you know what like she is a very type a kind of like
11:05she
11:05is a ham my mother i love her but this is the person that like every single morning you come
11:11downstairs she goes is that what you're wearing you know really i'm so right if there is anything more
11:18passive aggressive than that question you know i i would like to hear it is that what you're wearing you
11:23yeah yeah so doug keep the director were you close to him before he's just with you everywhere and it
11:30seems like you honestly he was there i guess we met when i was like 30 or something 30 i
11:36was much
11:36younger up to that point i just slept around a lot i mean you know we were all kind of
11:42crazy in those
11:42days you know and douglas is so good looking and so tall and and smart and funny yeah he's all
11:49of the
11:50above but we're not really that suited to one another you know he's just not we're not we're
11:57not really that well suited i mean we're friends of course but as spouses i don't think it was right
12:02what is your favorite moment from unzipped my favorite moment from unzipped i love the moments of linda
12:14evangelista because i used to really like worship that woman you know like she was of course naomi
12:21christy all of them but linda was i don't know she was a wicked wicked funny person like linda is
12:29crazy funny you know and and i was very i don't know i love this moment with her backstage where
12:35she's
12:35screaming i love her because she's she just she doesn't think she just kind of expresses herself
12:42she would take clothes a lot in payment like i sometimes i didn't pay linda she would just come
12:47in for clothes and and i remember once she came into a fitting and she had just gone shopping with
12:52this person called dawn who worked with us and she's and dawn said oh by the way we were starting
12:57something she said to linda darling where should we send the clothes when they all come in she said oh
13:01let me think about oh you know just send them to the concord lounge at air france they'll find me
13:07and i thought she means like she meant that you know she was maybe the most glamorous woman
13:12in the world you know well what we don't wake up unless we're getting fifteen hundred dollars an
13:18hour or something right i don't get out of bed for under 30 grand now that's the famous quote but
13:22the
13:23thing the thing about her was she didn't she it felt like she had all this confidence i bet she
13:28was a
13:28wreck through the whole thing but she came across as this you know she had the confidence
13:34also shalom harlow i adored you know like oh my god she's my favorite model of all time you know
13:40because she's not as famous as cindy and naomi but this movie really made her shine you know these people
13:48are certainly a huge part of your life but they were a part of everyone's life they were the stars
13:53i mean absolutely so i understand that there is going to be a little premiere of the film in new
14:00york
14:01that's right and uh are you excited about that i'm thrilled i'm thrilled about it i can't wait
14:11you
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