I have a ‘90s Girl affection for Isaac Mizrahi to this day. He’s so camp, so funny, so real. He was on the forefront of designers-as-celebrities and putting himself front and center in the story of his designs. He loved celebrities and models and they loved him right back. He was also on the forefront of leaving couture spaces for mass-market and affordable designs. Currently, Mizrahi is the creative director at Target and he still has a QVC collection. Well, he’s promoting the newly restored 1995 documentary Unzipped, which followed him around as he unveiled his 1994 collection. It’s an iconic piece of 1990s fashion and celebrity. Mizrahi chatted with Variety about the doc, the Met Gala and the current state of the fashion industry.

He’s not eager to rewatch Unzipped: “I have to say I hate looking back. I hate this whole process, a little bit of looking back. I looked so cute, and I look so sh–ty now. I was so agile, and I’m not as agile anymore. My knees hurt. My back hurts. Even my hair. I had such cute dark hair. Oh, well. But it’s not just vanity. It’s more just about the experience of your life. Thirty years! Man, that is crazy.”

What he would tell himself if he could go back three decades. Without missing a beat, he says, “’You’re not that fat!’ Swear to God, that’s what I would tell myself. I used to wear these crazy Fred Mertz kind of high-waisted pleated pants that I made myself because I was so f–king crazy that my waist was big. I was so stupid, and I look stupid, I don’t look chic. I look stupid, and I was perfectly fine. I was not fat. But I was a really fat kid, so I lost 75 pounds in high school. I’m never going to get over that. You never do.”

Mizrahi makes no secret about being on a GLP-1. “I love it. I’m in my 60s, darling and I recently just got so big. I’m usually very good at keeping it under control, but it’s incredible and the rest of your health benefits, it’s incredible.”

The fashion industry today: “I don’t know if those giant spectacles they have in Paris and Milan are necessarily supposed to be influential in the way people dress six months later. That is why that speech in ‘The Devil Wears Prada’ about cerulean blue makes me want to kill somebody because that is so not the way things work. They want you to believe that’s the way it works. I want to shout that from the rooftops, ‘It never has worked that way — never!’” What those spectacles do is they bolster the image of brand names so that they can sell a ton of perfume and handbags and shoes.”

On John Galliano & the Met Gala fiasco: Mizrahi calls Galliano a “genius,” but also says, “When they announced [the Galliano Met Gala], I thought to myself, ‘Wow, who’s going to that?’ I’m not even talking about Jews or donors of the museum. I’m thinking about a celebrity showing up. I don’t know who would show up on that red carpet. No one is going to say, ‘I love John.’ Who’s going to say that?”

[From Variety]

Re: Galliano, I think Mizrahi would be surprised by how many celebrities would have been easily persuaded to wear Galliano and praise him on the red carpet. The problem was never “will celebrities show up,” the problem was that the donor class wasn’t having it, and neither were New York politicians. What he says about the fashion industry is fascinating though – that “fashion week” isn’t about setting the fashion trends so much as the shows are about getting attention for the brands overall. While he would know more than me, I think it’s both – the shows are attempting to set fashion trends, but they’re also trying to create overall buzz for their perfumes, bags, etc.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.