Review of "I.M.: A Memoir" by Isaac Mizrahi

Isaac Mizrahi, born in 1961, is probably best known as a fashion designer, and that is indeed one of his many talents. But Mizrahi is an entertainer at heart, and has been since childhood. In this memoir Mizrahi writes that seeing Stephen Sondheim's Broadway show 'Follies' at the age of nine inspired him to set up a puppet theater in the family garage.


A scene from Follies

Isaac constructed the stage as well as the puppets, and sewed "over the top costumes" for his animated performers. For materials, Isaac got scraps of cloth from his fashionista mother Sarah, who edited her store-bought clothes and gave Isaac the remnants. The young producer also tiptoed into his parents' bedroom when they were asleep, and sneaked cash to buy fabric and extras - like feathers and sequins - from the textile store.


Isaac Mizrahi with a puppet of himself

Isaac periodically put on puppet shows for the neighborhood kids. He named his puppet reviews Follies, though they were original creations - not knockoffs of the Broadway show. Mizrahi's puppetry went on through the early years of high school, when he'd schlep a mobile puppet theater to children's parties across Brooklyn, to earn spending money.

Mizrahi notes, "My commitment to the puppet theater was obsessional....this was an escape for me. My early life felt hopeless....I was stuck in a school, in a neighborhood, to some extent a family I didn't belong in."

Mizrahi grew up in an insular Syrian Jewish community in Brooklyn, and always knew he was different - with his effeminate mannerisms and fantasies of having a husband. Mizrahi notes, "I stuck out like a chubby gay thumb" and observes, "There wasn't a moment when I didn't feel claustrophobic looking at my prospects there. Even at a young age I was demoralized by this. I knew there had to be a better place for me in the world."


Isaac Mizrahi with his mother


Young Isaac Mizrahi


Isaac Mizrahi with his sisters


A Syrian Jewish synagogue in Brooklyn

Schoolboy Isaac, who attended the well-regarded Yeshiva of Flatbush, deliberately isolated himself - hurt by taunts of 'faggot' from classmates as well as adults and even rabbis. This probably referred to Isaac's feminine behavior rather than his sexual orientation because "homosexuals were so taboo they weren't even a subject of discussion."


Yeshiva of Flatbush

As he grew up Isaac realized that his natural attraction to men was part of him, and feared "If God hated homosexuals, he hated me." These feelings were exacerbated by Isaac's father, who would say, "I think all fairies should be lined up and shot." Isaac planned never to tell his dad he was gay, noting "My modus operandi was hiding and denying."

Isaac did confide in his mother when he was 18 (after his father died), and she claimed she had no idea he was gay. Sarah Mizrahi accepted her son, but advocated a 'don't ask, don't tell' policy with regard to Isaac's two older sisters and the rest of the Syrian Jewish community. This didn't work, of course, but the subject was (and is) rarely discussed in Isaac's presence.

In addition to puppetry, Isaac developed an interest in women's fashions at a young age. From the time he was six or seven, Isaac would accompany his mother to Loehmann's, a store that sold discounted designer clothes. Sarah would prop her son in the corner of the communal fitting room with a coloring book, but little Isaac ignored the book and observed the ladies. He looked at their clothes and "studied their anatomy and choice of underwear."


Loehmann's clothing store

Norman Norell was the most important designer at that time, and Sarah once found a Norell pants ensemble, called pajamas, which was worn in the same context as an evening dress. Mizrahi recalls that the sailor-inspired outfit "seemed very glamorous to me."


Norman Norell with some of his fashions

A few years later - when he was 9 or 10 - Mizrahi set up an atelier in the family's basement, where he sketched apparel, and stitched clothing on a sewing machine he'd saved up for himself. Isaac's father Zeke - who manufactured children's clothing - drove his son to the sewing machine store, suggested a better machine than the one Isaac had chosen, and even ponied up the extra twenty dollars.

This was gratifying to Isaac, who knew his father didn't approve of him. Mizrahi remembers being on a carnival ride at the age of five, where he posed and waved "like a homecoming queen I'd seen on TV." Isaac thought this was funny, but Zeke Mizrahi turned away, as he did when an older Isaac put on puppet shows or did female impersonations. Isaac - who loved to sing - would 'do' Barbra Streisand, Judy Garland, Dionne Warwick, and Liza Minelli....to the applause (or sometimes meanspirited ridicule) of his audiences.

One adult who did support Isaac was his Uncle Sammy, who smiled and waved when young Isaac posed on the carnival ride. Moreover, when Sammy heard that Isaac liked to paint, he bought his nephew an entire oil painting ensemble in a wooden box, and taught him how to use it.


Oil painting kit

Thinking back, Mizrahi writes, "My parents did their best considering the time and circumstances. They just wanted me to fit in. And they tried not to appear TOO disappointed that I didn't. They wanted me to be thin and athletic and manly. They hated that I was mostly at home in the garage playing with puppets, or sewing, or painting. Even practicing the piano too much got on their nerves. They wanted me to play outside in the sunshine. They coped by 'looking away', which I was well aware of."

In comparison to his sisters, Isaac was odd man out in the family. He recalls, "My sisters were gorgeous, thin and lithe....my chubbiness, my loneliness was contrasted with my sisters' beauty." He writes, "My body always seemed to present problems, and I always had weight problems. I attributed the shame I felt about my body to being fat. By the age of 12, I was 5'8" tall and weighed 250 pounds. Then began the nightmare of weight control that has been the bane of my existence for as long as I can remember."

After his Bar Mitzvah Isaac was depressed and fatter than ever, and knew he had to get out of the Syrian Jewish community. With encouragement from his English teacher at Yeshiva of Flatbush, Isaac applied to the Fiorello LaGuardia High School for the Performing Arts, located in Manhattan. He was accepted to the drama department, and it changed his life forever.


Fiorello LaGuardia High School for the Performing Arts

In the beginning, Isaac was a square peg in a round hole. He notes, "Things were topsy turvy at first in this 'modern libertine environment' that was SO different than Yeshiva." Isaac had to wear tights in acting and dancing classes and was too embarrassed to change in the boys bathroom, so he changed in a deserted back stairwell. He "felt like the butt of some terrible joke, with tights on", but by year two the rules relaxed, and he could wear whatever he wanted.

Mizrahi had ballet classes and modern dance and yoga, all taught by Charles McGraw - a prototypical 1970s gay man who made Isaac less self-conscious about himself. Manhattan's Upper West Side - where many of Isaac's classmates lived - became a hangout, and Mizrahi's friend Gina Belafonte introduced him to her father Harry Belafonte. This even impressed Isaac's parents.


Harry Belafonte and his daughter Gina

By Isaac's sophomore year in high school he was sketching designs for manufacturers and got paid $75 for handbag sketches. This was easier - and more lucrative - than hauling a puppetry rig around New York....and Isaac gave up the birthday party gigs. By senior year Mizrahi had sold sketches for tops, shoes, jean pockets, and handbags.


Isaac Mizrahi briefly appeared in the movie Fame, which was based on his high school

A few years later Isaac started a design business - called 'IS' - with an elegant, 30-year-old, Syrian Jewish woman called Sarah Haddad. Mizrahi's parents were in favor of this, glad he gave up ideas of entering show business. His mother "emphasized the glamour of the fashion business and her love for clothes." The business didn't last long, but was good experience for later.

Isaac's life became wilder during his teens and twenties, and he frequently hung out at Studio 54 and other nightclubs - which were full of flamboyant people and attractive boys. At 17 Mizrahi even traveled to Paris alone, so he could see the Louvre, eat delicious French food, and launch a trip to several cities in Europe.


The Louvre (circa 1980)


Inside the Louvre


Delicious French pastries

Afterwards Mizrahi enrolled in Parsons School of Design, and had jobs with Perry Ellis and Calvin Klein. According to Mizrahi, "Ellis's offices were salon-like and glamorous, and influential people were in and out all day." There, Isaac met people like Glenn Close, Lauren Hutton, Tommy Tune, Mariel Hemingway, Lauren Bacall, and more.


Parsons School of Design

Though all this was fun and exciting, it was disheartening in some ways. Mizrahi writes, "The gay culture in that world nourished me in some ways and fed my self-loathing in others.....The more I catered to the whims of those fabulous [thin handsome] men and women....the more proof I had that I was the fat ugly kid from Brooklyn....unworthy of a second glance."

In addition, the AIDS scourge started then, in the early 1980s, and many of the fashion glitterati - as well as members of the ballet and theater community - died over the next ten years. Mizrahi laments, "I took these losses personally on two levels. I grieved for the people I loved, and I was terrified for myself." As a result, Isaac had only a handful of boyfriends from 1981 to 1986, since the only fool-proof protection seemed to be abstinence.

On top of all this, Isaac suffered from anxiety, depression, and insomnia all his life, for which he's consulted many psychiatrists, psychics, and astrologers.

Isaac was ultimately persuaded to get his weight under control when he worked for Calvin Klein. He recalls, "Calvin's designers vied for Calvin's attention, and the thinner you were, the more likely you'd be to catch his eye." So Isaac went on a diet, became very thin, and "dressed like a punk Audrey Hepburn", with his hair in "Jew-dreads" and kohl on his eyes.


Fashionable Isaac Mizrahi

Mizrahi finally started his own business in the mid-1980s, in a large studio in Soho. Liza Minelli became a client, Mizrahi's shows were reviewed by the New York Times, and his name was soon at the top of every fashion page in every major newspaper in the world.


Isaac Mizrahi with Liza Minelli


Isaac Mizrahi with some design sketches


Isaac Mizrahi fitting a dress

Though Mizrahi is a brilliant designer, he's not a great businessman, and his design company went under in the late 1990s. At that time Isaac decided to change direction, and become "a thinker, writer, and performer." He wrote and launched a one-man cabaret show; developed a successful television talk show; made costumes for the opera and musical theater; directed a children's production of 'Peter and the Wolf'; was a judge on Project Runway All Stars; and more.


Isaac Mizrahi has a cabaret show


Conan O'Brien on Isaac Mizrahi's TV talk show


Isaac Mizrahi directed a production of Peter and the Wolf


Isaac Mizrahi was a judge on Project Runway All Stars

When he gave up designing Mizrahi had more free time, and embarked on a delayed 'slutty phase', during which he met a lot of men and had a lot of 'vertical sex.' He observes, "I was lucky not to get arrested or beat up or get diseases." He also adopted a rescue dog, a border collie-golden retriever mix called Harry, who was his beloved companion for 16 years.




Isaac Mizrahi and his dog Harry

Isaac has met everybody who's anybody, including actors, actresses, television personalities, supermodels, politicians, writers, photographers, singers, publishers, and so on. Anna Wintour, the editor-in-chief of Vogue, became a close friend, as did actress/comic Sandra Bernhard, dancer/choreographer Mark Morris, and composer/lyricist Stephen Sondheim. An award-winning 1995 documentary called 'Unzipped' - which follows Mizrahi as he plans and shows his 1994 collection - raised his profile even more.


Isaac Mizrahi with Anna Wintour


Isaac Mizrahi with Sandra Bernhard


Isaac Mizrahi with Mark Morris


Stephen Sondheim


Naomi Campbell (left) and Linda Evangelista appeared in Unzipped with Isaac Mizrahi

In the early 2000s, Mizrahi met a 'shiksa god' named Arnold Germer, who looks like "a Puerto Rican Cary Grant." Their on-off love story is charming and a bit fraught, like a Hallmark romance movie, and they ultimately wed in 2011.




Isaac Mizrahi and his husband Arnold Germer

Mizrahi ignored the siren call of fashion for years, but was eventually drawn back into the profession. First he partnered with Target for a ready-to-wear line, then went on to sign a contract with QVC....on which he appears regularly.


Isaac Mizrahi on QVC

If you read the book, many of the names mentioned will be familiar to you, including Jane Fonda, Cindy Crawford, Christy Turlington, Sarah Jessica Parker, Matthew Broderick, Helen Mirren, Andrea Martin, Rosie O'Donnell, Diane Sawyer, Meryl Streep, Mamie Gummer, Diane Lane, Elizabeth Taylor, Diane Keeton, George Clooney, and many more.


Hillary Clinton in an Isaac Mizrahi dress


Michelle Obama in an Isaac Mizrahi dress


Isaac Mizrahi with designer Marc Jacobs at an AIDS fundraiser run

Nevertheless, Mizrahi's narrative doesn't feel like 'name-dropping' and the author doesn't tell tales out of school. Instead, Mizrahi comes across as modest, intelligent, engaging.....and a 'mensch.'

I liked the book and would recommend it to people who follow fashion and fans of celebrity memoirs.






Some Isaac Mizrahi fashions

Rating: 4 stars