March 2019

I have been raving about the audiobook of I.M. by Isaac Mizrahi for weeks now. After I finished listening to it, I was sorry that it was over. Mornings of “commuting with Isaac” as he narrated his life story made me happy to be stuck in traffic.

This is a memoir about a fashion designer who is a fashion icon, as well as a big personality. It’s life according to Isaac, and there are self-deprecating moments, deeply honest passages, and many, many whole sections where you will find yourself laughing out loud. From the time he was a young child, you can picture him eyeing the room to work it for the best results. When you learn that at age six he concocted a scenario to have his mother buy him his first Barbie and at seven knifed the school bus tire to try to get out of a day at school, you quickly see that Isaac was ready to be in charge, even if the world was not ready for him to be.

Isaac’s clear devotion to his mother is heartfelt, but then I loved how he could be woven into panic when she was in the room with his celebrity friends, as he wondered just what she might be saying as she spoke sotto voce across a crowded room. I can picture their Saturday morning breakfasts when he was a child, where they would dine over the meal that he had prepared and rapture about fashion and life.

Isaac also felt very trapped by his Syrian Jewish upbringing, and breaking from the mores and rituals of his heritage was very difficult, but also very freeing. When he breaks from “the community,” readers are taken through his romp of a life where he admits not just to his successes, but also to his failures. I remember when he closed his fashion line in the late ’90s, which became the source of such gossip. He felt freed.

I had the pleasure of working on two films when I was at Mademoiselle magazine for which we interviewed Isaac, and I was so impressed by how he would work to nail his statements succinctly. He always asked if he could have done it better, smarter, quicker or whatever, when he had gotten it on the spot! For the record, I can see him doing take after take to ensure that the audiobook was perfect. It’s really a performance from someone who understands the theater and performing, as well as the fashion world. This made me want to rewatch Unzipped, his 1995 documentary.

I still want to know why Anna Wintour no longer reaches out to him. But then again, the fashion world, like other celebrity worlds, has you either in the thick of things or out. There often is no middle wallowing ground. There were times when I listened that I felt he was obsessed with what others thought, but then I realized that once one thing ended, he was on to something more amazing, once he literally picked himself up off the floor. And yes, I could just picture him lying on the airport floor in a total state of panic before flying to Minneapolis to meet with Target prior to starting a new venture with them.

What I also saw is that he does not just phone in his life, he lives it broadly and boldly. And, I felt, honestly.

Can I ask for a sequel to a memoir? Because yes, I happily will listen to more!