Fashion and screen star Isaac Mizrahi dresses up Young Hollywood for the Academy Awards, explains why the next big fashion thing for young stars will be neatness, and, while he's at it, announces "If Stanley Kubrick calls me, I'm all his. Look what he did for Sue Lyon."
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Throughout last year's swell movie Unzipped, fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi so effortlessly and hilariously invoked lines, situations and theme songs from everything from The Red Shoes to "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" that I was able to diagnose him instantly as a fellow victim of movie damage. You know the syndrome: the major events in your life are all underscored in your mind by the soundtrack music of Bernard Herrmann. Miklos Rozsa or John Williams; you can't travel by train without fantasizing that some fabulous stranger might seduce you the way Eva Marie Saint seduced Cary Grant on the 20th Century Limited. Or, as in Mizrahi's case, you go to a Ouija board for creative inspiration and it does things like spell out M-A-R-N-I-E.
Yeah, Mizrahi is majorly movie-damaged, alright. And so, I'm thinking, as we face each other in the third-floor SoHo office of his ever-growing fashion empire, he is just the guy to critique Oscar fashion in general, and Young Hollywood Oscar fashion in particular. As a matter of fact, I'd like to be front and center at an Oscar show that he designed from the first plunging neckline to the last great pair of shoes, "Isaac." I say, "the Oscar show is all yours. Stage it, produce it, dress it to death. Run with it!"
Mizrahi's eyes go dreamy, and suddenly he's Steven Spielberg, Flo Ziegfeld and Ross Hunter all rolled into one. "What's fabulous about the Oscars," he declares, "is seeing people respond to winning or not winning. So I'd underproduce it, make it like Kitty Carlisle's house, which is in this great old building on Park Avenue, [where] she has shades with little crochet pull things on the end, a Steinway, some fantastic antiques, and that's all. No bar where seven lights go on and say. 'Hello. Thank you for opening the bar.' New York is turning into 'Dynasty,' a theme park, and here Kitty Carlisle's place is perfectly underproduced.
Now, the Oscars you have to make fabulous and simple because the content is interesting. It can't be something where people's attitudes are, well, nobody really wants to be here. And that means no bad song-and-dance numbers. I would hold it in some beautiful, paneled little room like at the Algonquin Hotel, with framed portraits of great old actors on the walls. People would be seated at lovely little tables. Men would have to go in tuxedos and women would have to be dressed very elegantly." I point out to him that what he's describing is the awards ceremony in All About Eve. "Exactly what it should be," he asserts.
OK, now that we know where the Oscar show should take place, how should Young Hollywood dress for the occasion? And if Mizrahi could put some of the young stars -- say, Winona Ryder -- in his own gowns, which ones would they be? "Winona Ryder is so beautiful and young, you could put her in anything of mine," he observes. "But my favorite thing for her to wear would be a gown I made for the spring collection, a rock-color gazar with crystal beading around the neck."
Sandra Bullock? "I'd love to see her in a black fitted suit I made, with a high neck, very plain and austere, with her hair straight back and no makeup."
Gwyneth Paltrow? "She is so beautiful, but she's undefined at the moment. She could be Grace Kelly if she wants to be. That's how I'd dress her."
Uma Thurman? "I put her in a dress once and it was so beautiful, I'd love to see her just wear that for the rest of her life. It was a black, sequined, backless dress that had beading around the neck, the armholes and the back. Oh my God. it worked -- big time -- just because of her attitude."
Nicole Kidman? "Absolutely anything I design would work for Nicole Kidman, because she's not a young thing, she's a woman."
Alicia Silverstone? "She has such beautiful skin, I'd put her in something bare, like a crystal beaded, pink gazar dress that Linda Evangelista just wore in my show. It was like something the Supremes would have worn in their glory.''
Juliette Lewis? "I love her. I always want to see her looking diminutive, like she's wearing someone else's clothes that don't quite fit her. It's not Oscar ceremony material, but I'd love to see her in a big camel's hair sweater from my fall line with a big turtleneck."
Mira Sorvino? "She could wear anything, but I'd love to see her in something discreet, like this navy blue dress with a drawstring at the hip and flat shoes that Linda Evangelista wore in the recent show."
Drew Barrymore? "She's fantastic, and, although I don't know why, I always see her in white terry cloth robes, like Marilyn Monroe coming out of the bathtub, looking out the window and throwing kisses to the crowd outside her hotel room."
Marisa Tomei? "Mmm. Well, she lives in my building on 12th Street."
Julia Ormond? "I went on a verbal slur campaign with Sabrina -- just because I didn't do the clothes, I'm sort of, like, furious about that movie." Really? "Somebody from the Sabrina production called and said, 'What if you were to do the clothes?' When I asked who the girl was. they said Julia Ormond, but I said, 'Why don't you find someone like a just-discovered Sade? That would make it really fascinating, where they'd be creating a whole new thing.' Well, ahem, I didn't do the movie."
OK, while we're digressing, on whom might Mizrahi want to get his hands for a makeover, young or not so young? "I'd put Melanie Griffith on a macrobiotic diet," he asserts. "That girl just can't eat without showing yesterday's dinner on her face. She's one of those blondes who shows every single thing she eats. I would love to get a hold of Whitney Houston, too, so I could give her taste. She's ravishingly beautiful. I'd love to make Jodie Foster over so that she'd finally give us some of what she has hidden. I'd like to unleash some of her sexiness. I bet I could also really bring something out of Jessica Lange. No matter where she is in terms of her weight, hair or makeup doesn't matter, there's something essentially sexy about that woman and I bet I could make her a goddess."
Suddenly, Mizrahi's face lights up. "Oh. here's a Young Hollywood actress I would like to make over. The one with the beautiful smile that has big red hair. What's her name? I love her, but I've never liked any movie she's ever made. She was in Pretty Woman years ago?" Julia Roberts? "Yes! Boy, could I make her over. I'd really like to put her in clothes, dresses that meant something. She is fascinating because she looks so very different from anyone else whom we've considered beautiful. She could just break out in my clothes, that one."
Since Mizrahi has dissed and kissed a number of famous young Hollywood names, how would he say the young'uns, as a whole, have dressed themselves so far? The subject gets Mizrahi so fired up his eyes go diamond fierce, his American Spirit cigarettes stab the air, and his staccato speech fires off like darts. "Thank God they're just on the verge of beginning to take themselves seriously," he says. "Enough already with this kind of 'grungy kids' thing that is so tacky, so not-what's-going-on at all. I liked Clueless because it was all dressed up fancy and the kids all looked fantastic. They were thoughtful about hair, makeup and what they wore, you know? That's what's going to happen. Young Hollywood is going to be great as people begin to launch their own backlash against everybody going around with clothes that don't fit, hair a mess, bad teeth and skin. I mean, even I'm wearing suits more and more, so if I feel this way, maybe they do too. I want everyone to look neat now."
Since Mizrahi admits he's been watching Oscar shows on TV for as long as he can remember, what about sizing up the sartorial splendor of Hollywood men? "The bad stuff all comes out at the Oscars," he asserts. "The thing is, if you're going to look like a mess, look like a complete mess. But this 'interpretation' of a tuxedo is something I hate. Like Robert Downey Jr. He's so good-looking, but he makes she biggest mistakes, because he wears fashion when he should just wear clothes. It's like he's at a restaurant going, 'I'll do Japanese, I'll do French, I'll do Italian' all at once ' And the dark Italian suit or tux is such a disappointment -- so Eurocentric and un-American. It says, well, this is the best thing I could come up with. America is about casual clothes, that's our essence -- it's Fred Astaire making the casual look like the most elegant thing in the world."
"But let's name some contemporary names. Keanu Reeves I never got until I saw him in Speed. Then, it hit me right between the eyes. I say, 'What's better than Keanu Reeves on a bus? Keanu Reeves in a suit.' I'd put him in a tux from Savile Row. Offscreen, a turtleneck, a suit from Savile Row, a little jeans now and then, lots of soft-colored beige or brown tweeds. And then he'd become this gentleman -- it would be like, whoa, Keanu Reeves, 'Mystery Date.'" Brad Pitt? "He looks so good clean, groomed. It's probably harder when you're that good-looking to be disheveled and sloppy than to look neat as a pin." Jim Carrey? "I see right through that green body paint, right down to the core of that man. He's a major, major heartthrob. Him in English clothes? Anyway, I feel as though young men are going to want to try and look like Cary Grant again. I'd ship them all off to Savile Row, because I don't make men's clothes anymore. But when I do again, I'll be able to help these guys a lot."
A couple of guys, though, Mizrahi thinks don't need his help at all. "If anyone gets the whole deconstructive thing it's Johnny Depp," he says. "He and Kate Moss are bafflingly stylish. They don't think about it, they just do it. Another exception is Harrison Ford, who always looks best at the Oscars, because he always wears some amazing tuxedo, just a classic English Savile Row tuxedo. I was in Cannes over the summer for the opening of Unzipped and there was that incredibly handsome English actor. What's his name? The one who was involved in that big scandal? Hugh Grant, right. And it was so inspiring to see this young guy looking groomed and wearing this perfect tuxedo from Savile Row. Here's my tag line about all of this: 'The surest way to look old today is to dress young.' ''
Who among the younger Hollywood crop does Mizrahi suspect might spearhead a fashion turnaround? "Drew Barrymore is really specific about what she wears and she will be fascinating," he predicts. "Another pacesetter with the way she dresses is Uma Thurman. She thinks about what she's going to look like. You want to talk movie damage? I don't think I've been as inspired by the way someone's looked since I saw Uma in Henry & June. God, it was just astounding."
With such actors as Molly Ringwald, Claire Danes and Donovan Leitch strutting their staff on couturier runways more and more, has Mizrahi wanted to recruit any celluloid types for his shows? He shakes his head no, but he just shot an ad campaign for his new, more affordable line of clothes that featured Natalie Portman, the 14 year old from The Professional and Heat. "I could say to her. 'Be big as this, be Shirley,'" he says, pulling out a still of Shirley MacLaine singing "I'm a Brass Band" in Sweet Charity. "and she could. Then I'd say. "Just walk in on your boyfriend and tell him you've found yourselves a fabulous flat for $800 a month!' and she'd do that. It was like Audrey Hepburn in Funny Face floating down the stairs in that gown going. 'Take the picture! Take the picture!'"
As an honorary chief of the world's fashion police, would Mizrahi care to slap citations on any particular Oscar offenders, young or old? What about Barbra Streisand's infamous see-through number back in 1969? "I loved that, because I think it's great when people have the balls to do something like that, even if it's horrible. They're living their fantasy. Sometimes Geena Davis, who I think is fabulous, looks like she made the dress she's wearing in therapy, but then sometimes she looks fantastic. She, like, scares people with what she's wearing sometimes, then other times, she's amazing. More power to her, I say, because she's having a ball. And it's her ball, right?"
Mizrahi loves shock effect overall. "I don't mind a scandal," he declares. "Scandal is great. Stars should absolutely be encouraged to go out and do crazy things. I just wish they'd handle scandal differently. Like Hugh Grant. When that scandal broke out, instead of doing the Leno show and going. 'Oh. my God. I did something so wrong,' I wish he'd have just come out and said, 'Give me a break. If it offends you, sorry, I'm so famous, I can fuck anybody I want, and because I can fuck anybody I want, I want to fuck this prostitute, because that's what I'm going through right now.' In the 1990s, I feel it's impossible to be one thing but to try and represent something entirely different. If you do that, you're going to end up being O.J. Simpson."
I marvel at how Isaac Mizrahi, the Brooklyn kid who's now incredibly debonair, has been using his outsized personality and charisma to draw attention to his work and himself. What was Unzipped, after all, but a fabulous commercial for his gifts as a designer and as potential date material for interested parties? I'm wondering what sort of flirtatious, seductive response he has gotten since the movie. "I'm such a dope, I don't notice it until someone else brings it to my attention," he admits. "Someone I know called and said. 'This friend of mine saw Unzipped and wants to meet you. He's 6'5", a therapist,' and so on. Well, I met him and it was fine, but it didn't go anywhere. There wasn't a spark. What I'm going through right now is that I get enough sex when I need it, but not everybody knows how to kiss me, you know? I look for something that's way beyond the content of perfect physique. In the business I'm in. I'm bombarded every second by perfect physiques, perfect faces. What I like is real tenderness. Kissing."
Just then my tape recorder switches over and the tiny microphone pops up of its own volition. "Just like an erection," 'Mizrahi marvels. "Well, a petit erection." Apropos of which, he recalls which movies truly formed and wrecked him as a Brooklyn kid. "I was an insomniac as a teenager," he says. "Movies were my friends, my companions. I never had any friends until I went to high school and then I had a million. That's when I fell in love with Carole Lombard, whom I cannot get over, because I just want to be so lightweight, like someone blew me out of a bubble. I used to be very obsessed with Elizabeth Taylor, too; it was a summer-long obsession, a Suddenly, Last Summer-long obsession. I used to wear lots of powder like her, lots of eye makeup and eyeliner..."
"Anyway, back to the point. So, it was three a.m. in my parents' house and I was watching TV in my bedroom reading the big fall issue of Vogue. Back Street was on. The one with Susan Hayward and John Gavin. So. there I was with the magazine, drawing sketches of women's hairdos, probably from movies, and watching Back Street, which was about a fashion designer. All of a sudden, it was like, "This is what I want to do. Poor thing, she has all these problems with men, but she's fabulous because she owns her own salon.' I thought, 'If I have my own clothing salon and line of clothing to focus on, I'll have a certain control over my life."'
Knowing that Mizrahi is a fan of the movie All About Eve, in which the conniving, young hopeful "Eve Harrington" rides the coattails of aging diva "Margo Channing," I ask what he says to those who snipe that his Unzipped director -- and old boyfriend -- Douglas Keeve, played Eve to his Margo? "Wow," he says, letting out a sigh. "I never heard that. I know the true story, so I don't think it's that at all. We had a really, really great relationship for two years until he decided to break up with me and forgot to tell me." Did Mizrahi get the tiniest twinge of satisfaction when Keeve was recently fired from the film Inconvenienced for allegedly getting leading man Rob Schneider dropped on his head? "I was thrilled to hear it, but only because I fell it was good that he's not making that trashy movie with, what's his name, Rob Schwartz? Who even knows who that is? And who needs another movie about a holdup in a convenience store? After Unzipped, Hollywood thought about Douglas, "Hmm. Idiot? Or idiot savant?' I know he felt he should strike while the iron was hot, but, in the end, if the iron is hot, it just gets hotter. I told him, "Take your time and get something really good that's worth devoting the energy to.'"
Has Mizrahi run into Robert Altman? It's a tantalizing notion, simply because so many critics thought Unzipped said everything about the zany, flea circus glamour of fashion that Altman's Ready to Wear didn't. "Here's what I remember about meeting him. I was with a beautiful woman, a real bombshell, and someone introduced us to Altman and it was like I didn't exist. He completely ignored me, which I thought was kind of cute, actually."
I've heard that since Unzipped was released, Hollywood's dangled such offers before Mizrahi as a role in the all-star black comedy The First Wives Club. "I went to Hollywood a couple of times over the summer for Unzipped and for launching my line of eyeglasses," he admits, "and you cannot believe the kinds of faxes people sent me, like, 'We were born to work together.' I can act, definitely, and be really good. On Unzipped. I knew Douglas, and Douglas put it together brilliantly. But there's always a risk when you don't know the director. [Still] if Stanley Kubrick calls me. I'm all his. Look what he did for Sue Lyon."
We've been having such a high old time, Mizrahi panics on realizing that he's late for a shrink appointment. "Oh, well," he says, shrugging, "this has been a shrink appointment." So. then, any last words? He squares his shoulders, flashes his eyes a la Faye Dunaway playing Joan Crawford in Mommie Dearest and bellows. "Take that bitch of a bearing wall out and put a window where a window ought to be!" Exactly.
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Stephen Rebello co-wrote "Sex '96" for the Jan./Feb. issue of Movieline.