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Gift books: For the artistic soul plugged in to all creative outlets

Feature by Alice Cary

Creativity is often born under unexpected circumstances, as these books so beautifully demonstrate.

The Art of Love by Kate Bryan
Married British artists Idris Khan and Annie Morris have a framed sign in their London home that’s meant to be ironic: “An artist should avoid falling in love with another artist.” Of course, two highly talented artistic souls living and creating together can be a dream, a nightmare or a highly charged bit of both, as evidenced by the endlessly fascinating stories revealed in The Art of Love: The Romantic and Explosive Stories Behind Art’s Greatest Couples.

British art curator Kate Bryan—a lively, informed guide—profiles 34 artistic couples, ranging from 1880 to the present, including the likes of Françoise Gilot and Pablo Picasso, Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz, and Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg. Asli Yazan’s illustrations of these artists add a wonderful touch of color, helping to bring their personalities to life.

Bryan writes that her goal was to “present as many different perspectives on artists in love as possible.” She focuses on how these relationships affected each creator’s art instead of chronicling the melodrama—yet she does dole out a variety of delicious tidbits, like the fact that even after Frida Kahlo divorced Diego Rivera, who was 21 years her senior, she “continued to mother the wayward beast, even running him baths with rubber ducks.” Oh my.

Skip by Molly Mendoza
Art and story meld beautifully in Skip, Molly Mendoza’s virtuoso graphic novel about fear and courage, friendship, change and creativity. In a dystopian world rife with the threat of attacking “tech-hounds,” a child named Bloom and his guardian, Bee, live on a lake’s island, subsisting on duck eggs and fish. After hearing a radio SOS, Bee announces that she must leave, asking Bloom to be brave until she comes back from her rescue mission—except she never returns.

While skipping stones one day, Bloom suddenly finds himself in a completely different world, where he meets a mysterious creature named Gloopy who’s having a hard time fulfilling his creative spirit and fitting into his community. Bloom and Gloopy join forces and “skip” into several different worlds, facing a myriad of dangerous creatures: a giant, lonely bird and a universe creator named Lily, who urges Gloopy to follow his creative desires. Mendoza describes her own artistic style as “chaotic yet rhythmic,” and her multicolored, imaginative creations make Skip a memorable, action-packed adventure, full of bold swirls of both color and emotion.

Body by Nathalie Herschdorfer
Curator and art historian Nathalie Herschdorfer has compiled a glorious celebration of the human form with more than 350 images from over 175 photographers in Body: The Photography Book. As she notes in the preface, contemporary photography reflects society’s changing standards of beauty and opens up “new pathways for bodily representations and perspectives beyond the traditional nude.” With artists like Sally Mann, Herb Ritts, Cindy Sherman and Liu Bolan, the sweepingly broad perspectives are fascinating, a mix of fantasy and reality.

You’ll see a 3D ultrasound of an 8-month-old yawning, the hunched figures of elderly people walking, sculpturelike nudes, baseball players in action, a crowd of happily dancing people at a Scottish Town Hall Christmas party and even the colorfully abstract, highly magnified view of the connections between human nerve cells. There are disturbing images as well—an anorexic young woman, a man’s face after a fight, scars left on a refugee’s back by the Taliban. Youth, love, joy, movement, health, disease, celebration—Body honors the many sizes, shapes and moments that make us all human.

Shoot for the Moon by Tim Walker
Shoot for the Moon takes its title from a Norman Vincent Peale quotation: “Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you will land among the stars.” It’s an apt title, for renowned British fashion photographer Tim Walker spends his life among stars, creating famously surreal wonderlands within his images.

A follow-up to a previous volume, Story Teller, Shoot for the Moon focuses Walker’s lens on the darker side of his imagination, somewhere he’d “been previously too scared to visit.” In a brief introduction, he writes, “Like every child, I had a fear of the dark—but now I know that it is here, in the shadows, that the magic is hidden.”

And what magic there is! These images are at times fun, funky, bizarre, glamorous, spooky and over the top, featuring celebrities like Claire Foy, RuPaul, Bill Hader, Tommy Lee Jones, Tilda Swinton and Whoopi Goldberg, all like you’ve never seen them before. A number of comments are included from models like Kate Moss, who says: “Tim’s magic is that he makes fantasy believable. He makes otherworldly images that seem so accessible.” Fashion fans will quickly lose themselves in these wonder-filled pages.

Creativity is often born in unexpected circumstances, as these books so beautifully demonstrate.
NonfictionWomen's HistoryMusicFashionAmerican History

Gift books: For musicians, audiophiles and anyone with a song in their heart

Feature by Hilli Levin

Whether you’re shopping for a burgeoning Bach or someone who can’t carry a tune in a bucket, these books will play on any music lover’s heartstrings.

What do you get for the music obsessive on your list in the age of streaming? Skip the Spotify gift subscriptions and try one of these lovingly curated coffee table books instead. Whether you’re buying for a Woodstock fan who wants to relive the good ol’ days or for someone who’s always hoping to discover their next favorite artist, these are sure to please the person at your holiday gathering who always asks, “Hey, do you mind if I change the music?”

She Can Really Lay It Down by Rachel Frankel
“The present—if long overdue—push toward a more progressive, feminist reading of our cultural history requires disabusing ourselves of known canons, and some pretty deeply entrenched ideas about the history of popular music,” writes Amanda Petrusich in the foreword to the celebratory book She Can Really Lay It Down: 50 Rebels, Rockers, and Musical Revolutionaries. Author Rachel Frankel gamely sets out to help us reconsider the history of popular music with short but thorough essays on big names like Beyoncé, Selena and Dolly Parton. However, the most exciting pages in Frankel’s book shine a light on figures like guitarist Sister Rosetta Tharpe, folk musician Violeta Parra, South African singer-songwriter Miriam Makeba and other women who have been overlooked for too long. This incisive compilation delivers more than just surface-level girl power, and it would make an excellent gift for anyone with a deep interest in music, creativity and popular culture. I’d especially recommend putting this in the hands of a teenage girl.

Supreme Glamour by Mary Wilson
From the vantage point of 2019, it’s easy to wax poetic about the essential give-and-take between fashion and music, but that relationship certainly wasn’t a given when the Supremes began performing together and crafting their iconic looks in 1961. Mary Wilson, a founding member and anchor of the legendary musical group, takes us through the group’s sartorial evolution with Supreme Glamour, a collection of more than 400 photographs of their most influential sequined, bedazzled and brightly colored outfits. Wilson’s personal musings about the group’s journey perfectly accompany the glossy full-page spreads of dazzling gowns embellished with crystals and pearls, sequined show-stoppers seen on “The Ed Sullivan Show” and marabou-trimmed couture made for their Broadway performances. Fashion lovers will especially appreciate the attention to detail, with notes that include the material, embellishments and notable appearances of the outfits along with other interesting historical tidbits.

Country Music: An Illustrated History by Dayton Duncan and Ken Burns
As PBS devotees know, a new Ken Burns documentary is cause for celebration, and “Country Music” is already being hailed as one of his best. Although a big ol’ coffee table book that ties in with a television series can be a tough sell, Country Music: An Illustrated History is definitely a worthy companion piece. Country music afficionados are often left a little high and dry, as music journalists tend to reserve their ink for rock ’n’ roll heroes. But authors Dayton Duncan and Ken Burns dive deep into the roots and rise of this genre: the African American banjo players and Scottish American fiddlers who laid the foundations of the genre, the gospel-infused songs from groups like the Carter Family that helped radio stations get on board, the surprising rise of Hank Williams, the storied Nashville Sound of the 1960s, the outlaw swagger of Waylon Jennings and Jessi Colter, the rise of modern pop-country and everything in between. This tome packs in hundreds of rare photographs, excellent historical asides and interviews with influential figures like singer-songwriter Emmylou Harris. I’d wager that this will be one of the more popular gifts for music lovers this year.

Woodstock Live: 50 Years by Julien Bitoun
It’s the 50th anniversary of Woodstock, and, like it or not, this music festival on a dairy farm in upstate New York remains one of the most influential cultural events in modern history. Long before “festival fashion” was even a part of the zeitgeist, more than 500,000 Woodstock attendees jammed out in harmony with each other, in the rain and mud, while watching performances that have reached near-mythological status. Guitarist and author Julien Bitoun revisits the weekend with Woodstock Live: 50 Years, an attractive giftbook that includes a short and reverential summary of each performance, along with every performer’s setlist, their accompanying musicians, the amount of time they spent on stage and striking photographs from each gig. Bitoun begins with Richie Havens’ improvised opening set at 5:07 on Friday and ends with Jimi Hendrix’s guitar-burning closer on Monday morning, then wraps it all up in an extensive epilogue that runs through notable absentees, the most iconic guitars played at the festival and how the weekend is remembered today. This will make a great gift for anyone hoping to relive the experience, or those who dream about traveling back in time to attend.

What do you get the music obsessive on your list in the age of streaming? Skip the Spotify gift subscriptions and try one of these lovingly curated coffee table books instead.
NonfictionMemoirFashion

I.M.

Review by Amy Scribner

In the 1995 documentary Unzipped, Isaac Mizrahi is a flurry of genius, spouting ideas and stories and impersonations. He’s a fashion designer at the height of his fame, smoking cigarettes and hanging with his pals Linda Evangelista and Christy Turlington. His wonderfully introspective new memoir, I.M., makes clear that Mizrahi is still the same creative force of nature, just polished down and with more years under his well-crafted belt.

The youngest of three children in a conservative Brooklyn family, Mizrahi was an outlier from the get-go. “The Syrian-Jewish community had never seen anything like me before,” he writes. “I stuck out like a chubby gay thumb.” While his peers were playing ball, Mizrahi was sewing costumes for his puppet shows and belting out Liza Minnelli tunes. He was perhaps destined to be a designer: His mother subscribed religiously to Women’s Wear Daily, and his father manufactured children’s clothing. But while his parents could tolerate—even nurture—his creativity, their hearts were not open to the possibility of a gay son. He thrived at Parsons, an elite Manhattan design school, but essentially lived a double life for years throughout the late 1970s and early ’80s: dutiful Jewish son at home, openly gay man in the city.

Even as he struggled with his personal identity, Mizrahi’s star rose as he worked at Perry Ellis and Calvin Klein and opened his own atelier. He gained a reputation as the rare male designer who really understood women and their bodies, in part because of conversations with his mother about fashion. “Any kind of fashion sets down its demand for a singular kind of perfection; one way or the highway,” he writes. “It translates essentially as one large punishment on women. Only recently are we beginning to acknowledge that beauty is a broad subject, one in which all people can participate.”

I.M. is as generous a memoir as I can remember. Mizrahi lays bare his struggles with body image, insomnia and relationships. He meditates on the fickle nature of the fashion industry and spills a little tea on his many celebrity friends. The book is like a classic Mizrahi design: joyful, colorful and always with a twist of the unexpected.

 

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read our Q&A with Isaac Mizrahi.

In the 1995 documentary Unzipped, Isaac Mizrahi is a flurry of genius, spouting ideas and stories and impersonations. He’s a fashion designer at the height of his fame, smoking cigarettes and hanging with his pals Linda Evangelista and Christy Turlington. His wonderfully introspective new memoir, I.M., makes clear that Mizrahi is still the same creative force of nature, just polished down and with more years under his well-crafted belt.

NonfictionMemoirFashion

A legendary personal stylist’s candid story

Review by Amy Scribner

Eighty-six-year-old personal shopper Betty Halbreich stole the show in a 2013 documentary called Scatter My Ashes at Bergdorf’s. Her slightly haughty demeanor was belied by a twinkle and a smile playing at her lips. There’s more to this story, she seemed to be saying.

Is there ever. In her deliciously candid memoir, I’ll Drink to That, Halbreich recounts her life in fashion. Born into a wealthy Chicago family, Betty was a lonely only child who adored but rarely saw her glamorous parents. A classic beauty, she was married at 20 to a dashing and wealthy New Yorker, Sonny Halbreich. Her only job was to dress well for their extravagant life.

But when infidelity cracked their marriage open after several years and two children, Halbreich attempted suicide and was briefly hospitalized. As she adapted to life as a single, middle-aged mother, she got her first-ever job. Using her legendary ability to put her own twist on an outfit, she worked her way up in the fashion world before joining Bergdorf Goodman (“Xanadu. Candy Land.”) in 1976.

Upper management soon took note of her ability to find the perfect ensemble for every lady who came through the door—no matter her shape or budget. After being put to the test by successfully dressing the legendarily stylish Babe Paley, Halbreich got her own personal shopping department.

“I took the lady of leisure style off my back and put it on others, particularly women who didn’t have only wealth but also big lives,” she writes. “With charities, multiple households around the world, and complicated families to run, they wanted to be fashionable but not look like everyone else. And they certainly couldn’t be seen in the same dress twice—in the past I never would have either.”

Halbreich shows very little sign of slowing down. She styles celebrities, socialites and the now-grown children of women she’s worked with, all of whom seek her trademark honesty and sharp eye. 

In this superbly entertaining, surprisingly poignant memoir, Halbreich proves that fashion is about so much more than clothes: It’s a reflection of personal identity and self-worth, whether you buy your outfits at Walmart or Bergdorf.

 

This article was originally published in the September 2014 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Eighty-six-year-old personal shopper Betty Halbreich stole the show in a 2013 documentary called Scatter My Ashes at Bergdorf’s. Her slightly haughty demeanor was belied by a twinkle and a smile playing at her lips. There’s more to this story, she seemed to be saying.
NonfictionFashionBiography

The patina of taste

Review by Catherine Hollis

Diana Vreeland launched herself at Harper’s Bazaar with the column “Why Don’t You?”: “Why don’t you rinse your blonde child’s hair in dead champagne to keep its gold, as they do in France?” Such love for the superficial and luxurious may have been out of step with the austerity of the 1930s, but it foretold the direction of much of 20th-century American fashion. As fashion editor at both Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue—where she was an early promoter of “youthquake” trends in the 1960s—and later as curator of the Metropolitan Museum’s Costume Institute, Vreeland’s professional influence was as eccentric as her personal style.

Rail-thin with severe black hair and a distinctive, crane-like ­profile, Vreeland’s style developed as compensation for her perception that she was unattractive. In the insightful new biography Empress of Fashion, Amanda Mackenzie Stuart shows how Diana’s debutante mother rejected her “ugly” daughter in favor of her more conventionally pretty sister. This hurt Diana, but she did not allow it to shape her life. Reinventing herself as “The Girl”—immaculate, stylish and positive—led to five decades of fashion-forward professional success.

Stuart uses Vreeland’s vulnerable roots to create a sympathetic portrait of Diana, and also to explain her notorious lies about her background, such as her stories about growing up in Belle Époque Paris instead of New York City. She believed in telling the best story possible; if that meant gliding over the hurt of being an unloved daughter, so be it.

Diana Vreeland’s life story is oddly inspiring. Why don’t you give a copy of Empress of Fashion to your favorite fashionista this holiday season?

Diana Vreeland launched herself at Harper’s Bazaar with the column “Why Don’t You?”: “Why don’t you rinse your blonde child’s hair in dead champagne to keep its gold, as they do in France?” Such love for the superficial and luxurious may have been out of step with the austerity of the 1930s, but it foretold […]
LifestylesFashionCrafts, Hobbies & Home

Living pretty

Review by MiChelle Jones

What's in your wardrobe?

Valentino: Themes and Variations begins with a series of photos documenting the couturier's final collection, from seamstresses hovered over a single garment to the finale of evening gowns in his signature poppy red. Next comes Valentino's exquisite creations shown on silver gray mannequins and interspersed with sketches and contemporary photos. Arranged thematically rather than chronologically, the pieces offer a sartorial snapshot of the decades: a 1972 pink gingham shantung maxi skirt, Julia Roberts' 1992 Oscar gown with cascading train of black tulle and white ribbons. The final chapter shows 40 years of magazine campaigns.

Long before Valentino presented his first collection in 1959 (before he was born, in fact), Edward Steichen was reinventing the fashion shoot. The portraits of models and celebrities in William A. Ewing and Todd Brandow's Edward Steichen: In High Fashion – The Cond

One of Steichen's breakthroughs was elevating the commercial to art, as he did with shoes in the 1920s. Caroline Cox's Vintage Shoes: Collecting and Wearing Twentieth-Century Designer Footwear suggests he had fabulous material to work with. Cox steps through the rest of the century, discussing major styles, influential designers and all sorts of trivia—from the origins of terms like "spectators" and "flappers" to the influence of the Charleston, tango and other dances on footwear. The many accompanying images are easier on the eyes than the small, sans serif typeface, so don't feel bad about skipping ahead to ogle the striking pumps and slings; ballet slippers and mules; Louis, Cuban and stiletto heels; go – go and kinky boots; platforms and wedges. Oh my.

Living like Ed

Anyone who's seen Ed Begley Jr.'s quirky reality show knows that living green isn't always pretty or comfortable—but it can be, according to Dreaming Green: Eco-Fabulous Homes Designed to Inspire. Along with gorgeous photo spreads of each dwelling, there's a list of its green features, which can include gray water systems, recycled and natural fabrics, lots of energy-efficient windows, even a pneumatic elevator. While the eco – friendly route was the logical choice for homeowners like Dwell's marketing director or an environmental lawyer wed to a biostatistician, others were inspired by health concerns or memories of the energy crisis of the late 1970s. The resulting homes range from the Manhattan brownstone of co-authors Lisa Sharkey and Paul Gleicher; a Venice Beach house in mirrored glass (featured on HGTV's "Extreme Living" this fall); and a Seattle house with regionally appropriate dining chairs made of metal recycled from a Boeing jet.

The focus in Domino: The Book of Decorating is more on achieving a comfortable, personalized style rather than an eco-friendly one. Packed with great photos, this delightful book devotes a chapter to every room in the house, including foyers and bathrooms—one of the best re-dos takes a loo from deal-breaker to simple, practical, beautiful—and kids' rooms. A charming drawing leads each chapter, followed by a description of the room's key item (sofa, table, bed); "steal this room" and mix-and-match suggestions, as well as ideas for small spaces. Finally a "Domino effect" spread charts the development of a feature room by showing the various elements—furniture, clipped magazine pages, swatch, memory of a store or room—that inspired the design. The book references websites and comes with a free subscription to the popular magazine.

What's in your wardrobe? Valentino: Themes and Variations begins with a series of photos documenting the couturier's final collection, from seamstresses hovered over a single garment to the finale of evening gowns in his signature poppy red. Next comes Valentino's exquisite creations shown on silver gray mannequins and interspersed with sketches and contemporary photos. Arranged […]
LifestylesFashion

Height of fashion

Review by MiChelle Jones

If you were in London at just the right time this fall, you were able to see both Queen Elizabeth's wedding gown at Buckingham Palace and the opening of the Victoria and Albert Museum's latest fashion exhibition. The queen's gown was designed by British couturier Norman Hartnell for her 1947 wedding, a much-heralded dash of splendor after the austere war years. But it was another designer, Christian Dior, who ushered in what was dubbed the New Look of postwar fashion that year. Dior's full-bodied skirts and use of luxurious fabrics are the jumping-off point of The Golden Age of Couture: Paris and London 1947-1957, the companion volume to the V&A show, edited by senior curator Claire Wilcox.

Ultra-sophisticated photographs by Richard Avedon, Cecil Beaton, Louise Dahl-Wolfe, the Seeberger brothers, John French and others highlight pieces by Dior, Balenciaga, Chanel, Balmain and Jacques Fath. Eight chapter-length essays cover the development of the French couture system, the industry before and during the Second World War, fabrics, the imagery of couture, the inner workings of fashion houses and more. Sidebars discuss the photographers, designers, the New Look itself, and such clever marketing ploys as traveling collections of exquisitely outfitted fashion dolls.

AMERICAN ORIGINALS
To mark his 40th anniversary in fashion, the eponymous Ralph Lauren, also available in a really expensive $400-edition, tracks the designer's career from his days as a tie salesman to his emergence as lifestyle merchant. This is no small feat, as shown in an illustrated timeline studded with Lauren's accomplishments first with a shop in Bloomingdale's, first American designer with a freestanding store and later with a store outside the U.S., first to launch a full home collection, first official outfitter of Wimbledon. Lauren has always managed to infuse his clothing and home fashions with the kind of backstory that inspired him, one of Joe DiMaggio, Frank Sinatra, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Cary Grant, Fred Astaire, Mickey Mantle, FDR, and JFK. This oversized volume is full of beautiful photographs (even Lauren's family photographs are magazine-quality) from fashion shoots, progressing from the earliest Polo shirts to the latest Purple Label suits. A visual index at book's end lists the photographers (Bruce Weber, Patrick Demarchelier, Carter Berg, etc.) and the names that go with the famous faces (Linda Evangelista, Tyra Banks, Naomi Campbell, Penelope Cruz, Tyson Beckford, Jane Gill, Valentina Zelyaeva).

There's couture and then there's what people really wear, as documented in New York Look Book: A Gallery of Street Fashion, a collection of the monthly columns by New York magazine fashion writer Amy Larocca and photographer Jake Chessum. These are literally person-on-the-street interviews and shoots, of a perfectly coordinated Jerry Hall-esque mother of four, design firm partners in outfits worthy of Andre 3000 (navy RL blazer, striped scarf, houndstooth trousers), a stylish tot in a vintage pram, and, at the other end of life, a natty retiree in taupe suede shoes. A few celebrities show up as well Oleg Cassini; Helen Mirren in long, charcoal pleated skirt and pale pink cardigan, red glasses hanging around her neck; John Waters in turquoise Levi's; and Cynthia Rowley. There is a delightful contrast between youthful experimentation and the self-assuredness of the older subjects.

THE WELL-DRESSED HOME
British interior designer Kelly Hoppen's loft home is in a converted girls' school; that aesthetic of cozy spaces within wide-open expanses fills her latest book, Kelly Hoppen Home: From Concept to Reality. Teaming again with writer Helen Chislett and photographer Vincent Knapp, Hoppen offers a practical guide to designing one's abode, regardless of preferred style. Using her home as well as those of clients for case studies, she explains each space with floor plans, photographs and detailed room boards featuring fabric swatches and images of the room's elements. A beautiful presentation of Hoppen's signature style neutral palettes with light and dark contrasts, peppered with a splash of color or show-stopping piece Kelly Hoppen Home is also a useful project manual for expressing one's own vision.

If you were in London at just the right time this fall, you were able to see both Queen Elizabeth's wedding gown at Buckingham Palace and the opening of the Victoria and Albert Museum's latest fashion exhibition. The queen's gown was designed by British couturier Norman Hartnell for her 1947 wedding, a much-heralded dash of […]
NonfictionMemoirFashion

Isaac Mizrahi

Interview by Amy Scribner

Fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi discusses his anticipated memoir, I.M., his love of New York City, his favorite designs from his many influential collections, creativity and more.

Why was now the right time to write your memoir?
It’s never a great time to write a memoir, but recently it’s seemed like the right time ’cause I was ready to share the specific details of my past and talk about where I wanted my life to go. I was ready to be honest. Any earlier it would not have been the right account. It takes a certain kind of distance from one’s past to be able to return to it.

You write, “I hate summer weather and sunny days.” What’s your idea of the perfect day, weather-wise and otherwise?
My idea of perfect weather is FREEZING COLD and grey. I love being able to open the window if it gets too warm indoors. I love the idea that I don’t sweat. I love the idea that my hair always looks so good. I love LOVE coats.

In your memoir, you’re very honest about your struggles with depression and body image. Was it difficult to write about issues you’ve grappled with since childhood?
Now that I’m in my 50s it seems like there’s enough distance from those troubled times, also I have enough strength in my life currently between my career and my husband, that no matter what anyone thinks of the book, I’m still OK. If the reviews are bad, if certain people don’t like it, it’s my story, told I think with no rancor, no anger, and deserves to be respected.

You write with such love for New York City. How has your relationship with your hometown evolved over your life?
For me, New York City has been a kind of magic place. I grew up here in Brooklyn, and began going to the city every day at high school. It was my way out. My way to a life of my own, which was something I had to take, I was not given. A big anonymous city is really important. A place where you can be exactly who you are without being judged. You can make mistakes and start over. You can actually start over any number of times here. You select your privacy here. I was told early in my life by a psychic that NYC was my forever home and not to think of moving. He described my feelings about NYC the way a farmer feels about the earth under his feet, there for his safety and cultivation.

Your mother is an enormously stylish woman, and you write about your weekend breakfasts when you both talked fashion as a child. Do you think you would have become a designer without her influence?
My mother was a great influence on me. She was a great example of pluck, of style, of shrewd maneuvering of events to suit her own agenda. More than stylish she was Machiavellian in her approach to making the best of her situation, manipulating the world to suit her. More than anything about style, I learned that.

You are one of the most successful American designers, yet you reveal you still feel like “a performer, a writer, trapped in the body of a fashion designer.” You’ve appeared in movies, had a talk show and performed cabaret! What do you think it’ll take for you to feel like a performer?
The more I work on stage the more I feel like a legitimate performer, and these days I do more and more of it.

You’ve worked with some of the most famous women in the world. Who are some of the most memorable women you’ve dressed?
Women I’ve dressed that I was awed by: Streisand, Liza, Meryl Streep, Hilary Clinton, Michelle Obama, Sarah Jessica Parker, Julia Roberts.

When I think of you as a designer, I think of the Isaac Mizrahi dress from Target that I’ve owned for years and will wear until it disintegrates or I die. Which specific pieces or collections first come to mind when you think back over all the clothing you’ve designed?
I love to think of the plain, well-cut, beautifully fabricated pieces I made for Target that were literally under $20. I think of a pink corduroy blazer I did in the first collection. I think of a red duffel coat. I think of the cashmere sweaters I did. Not to mention so many of the great, great handbags I did for them, some of which I still see people carrying. When I first started working with them, the merchants were scared of anything besides tops, mostly T-shirt tops. And by the time I left five years later, they had a big business in dresses and even skirts.

You married in 2011. How did that influence your creativity?
Meeting my husband, Arnold, and learning how to commit to him, learning how to love him, is a big influencer on creativity. As the relationship gets stronger I feel bolder about my approach to my work. It feels like I have nothing to lose. I can’t tell if that’s age or being secure in my marriage. My work is the most important thing in my life, but it wouldn’t be possible in so many ways unless my husband was there to support me. Not creatively, just as a human.
 

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read our review of I.M.

Author photo by Gregg Richards

Fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi discusses his anticipated memoir, I.M., his love of New York City, his favorite designs from his collections, creativity and more.

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