30 Years Later, Isaac Mizrahi’s Unzipped Is Still the Blueprint

Among the many games that fashion people play is a silent one called “Isaac or isn’t?”

The game is easy: A contemporary dress goes by—maybe it’s a pale pink pouf by [redacted Hollywood wife] or a zesty ball skirt and baby tee combo by [redacted CFDA emerging designer nominee]. You have three seconds to decide if Isaac Mizrahi did it first. Spoiler alert: He always did it first.

“Oh, honey, you can’t be so literal,” Mizrahi tells me when we convene over Zoom. “I’m all for this idea of references…like rap references, you know? How Lil’ Kim sampled beats in her songs. Let them sample me. Let them!”

Mizrahi is beaming in from his Bridgehampton, New York, studio (neighbors include Ina Garten and Christie Brinkley) for a chat about the re-release of Unzipped, the cult fashion documentary from 1995 that finally arrives back in cinemas on September 25 thanks to Janus Films, with streaming to follow in December.

Unzipped follows the New York designer as he grabs a copy of Women’s Wear Daily in 1994, reads a scathing review of his fashion show, and slowly plots a comeback involving—among other things—a viewing of Nanook of the North, a visit from Eartha Kitt, a late-night smoking session with André Leon Talley and John Galliano, and a bare-faced and shockingly loud Kate Moss.

“Mostly she says one word. She says no,” says Mizrahi. “But then in the scene backstage, she screams at Linda [Evangelista]!”

The frock flick gave viewers outside New York—including hordes of teens who later became designers and editors—their first true inside look at a fashion house. It was also the first time fashion got what would ultimately become the Bravo-verse treatment, with cameras tracking every move by Mizrahi and his then entourage of pals like performer Sandra Bernhard and creative director Nina Santisi, along with his mother, Sarah.

The experience, Mizrahi says, made him feel somewhat uncool and certainly uncouth. In those days, being followed by cameras was “very, very oppressively gauche,” he explains. “I don’t know if you can really understand what it used to be like at dinner parties, in socialites’ apartments or houses, how formal it was. You had to have perfect table manners…but then when you started having to do things like bring your camera crew with you, it was really, really hard.” He laughs a bit at the “absurdity” of that social stumbling block now. “I don’t even know socialites anymore,” he sighs. “Who even are they, right?”

Unzipped remains an ultimate obsession for people who still have Style.com bookmarked on their computers, and despite languishing in IP hell for decades, it survived on bootleg DVDs and in fan uploads chopped into tiny chunks to dodge copyright takedowns. Mizrahi admits that he does have some regrets about Unzipped, though—specifically, what got cut.

“We shot with Faye Dunaway one day,” says Mizrahi, “and it was such a fabulous day! The idea in Unzipped, which I think was so smart, was that [director] Douglas Keeve cut between real life and my favorite movies. With Faye, we wanted to cut back to Mommie Dearest, and she just did not want that! She wouldn’t approve the use of the film, so we had to cut her out of the movie. There’s a clip or two of Diane Keaton coming in for clothes, which we don’t see. And [makeup artist] Kevyn Aucoin was such a close friend of mine. We have tons and tons of footage of him popping into the studio.”

Aucoin, who authored the beauty bible Making Faces, had an unforgettable cameo telling Carrie Bradshaw not to panic during the “runway roadkill” Sex and the City episode. “He was so fun and so great,” says Mizrahi of his friend, who died in 2002. “I really, really, really regret not having more of Kevyn in the movie.” Still, Mizrahi is pretty thrilled that Unzipped—even without that footage—is hitting theaters again.

The film, of course, captured only the designer’s first act. After his namesake ready-to-wear line shuttered in 1998, he reigned as Target’s designer du jour, then moved through Liz Claiborne, QVC, and stage costumes, most recently appearing alongside Gwyneth Paltrow and Timothée Chalamet in last year’s Oscar-nominated Marty Supreme.

Despite begging from fans and friends, Mizrahi never returned to the runway, though he’d been planning a Teletubbies-inspired collection for 1999 that never materialized. “I used those four colors [from the characters]: the yellow, red, purple, green. The plan for the show was to have a big grassy hill that all the models walked down. That would have been the last collection.” My heart cramps just hearing about it—especially since Mona Tougaard would rock a yellow Lala evening gown. Alas, those Teletubby looks at a Net-a-Porter price point aren’t happening.

Meanwhile, everyone else is happily sampling him. Mizrahi pioneered everything from the party-girl separates in films like 10 Things I Hate About You to the Miss Rose White–style skirt suits now memed into Office Siren territory. You can see his whimsical crayon tulle at Christopher John Rogers, and his moto-jacket-and-slip-skirt combo at Brandon Maxwell. Sandy Liang is all over his baby-pink urban jungle vibes, with her shiny skirts the color of an unused pencil eraser.

I ask Mizrahi if he thinks fashion has been fair to him. “One hundred percent yes,” he answers with immediacy. “And have I been fair to fashion? Yes.” He takes a second. “I mean, occasionally, I was sort of iced out of something. And I feel like people asked, ‘Did he mean to?’ Did I mean to go to Target, you know? Did I mean to go mass? And my God, of course I meant to. To me, the best thing I’ve ever done was that whole collection with Target for seven years.”

That's not to discount his runway years, he’s quick to add. What he did between 1986 and 1998 “was pretty major,” he says. “I invented stuff. I was very, very influential, even to what goes on today. But Target was really important. And it was a progression that, for the most part, I was in control of.”

Now he’s back: Mizrahi tells me he’s “insanely excited” to be at Target again, where he was named creative director at large this June.

“These are kind of a trend forecast for them,” says Mizrahi, tilting his camera toward a wall of intricate hand-done dress sketches that look more like a prop from Sabrina than a Pinterest-forward presentation. “I’m not designing a collection directly anymore. I almost feel like it’s a teaching job or a mentorship. I’m a cheerleader over there. I go in and out of rooms, and I’m like, ‘We can do better.’ That’s a very good job for me. I really like inspiring people. I guess, you know, I’ve done it a lot.”