On a cold November morning, designer Isaac Mizrahi gets up, leaves his apartment, and trudges to the corner newsstand to pick up a copy of Women's Wear Daily. It's the day after Mizrahi's Spring/Summer 1994 show, and the ink on the reviews is still wet. Reading from the pages, he quotes, "'His usually great color sense failed him, his fabric sense failed him, and certainly, his sense of how a modern woman dresses after 8 p.m. failed him." The verdict is withering. Mizrahi, one of the great artists of '90s ready-to-wear fashion, has been tossed out. Disgraced. Lightly "cancelled," as some might call it these days.
Douglas Keeve's sublime 1995 documentary, "Unzipped," follows Mizrahi in the aftermath of a train wreck, piecing his reputation back together with his next collection, attempting to make something beautiful from the rubble. We find Mizrahi's world in grayscale, drained of color in the wake of critical and cultural failure. Then, the opening notes of Sandra Bernhard's 1994 cover of Sylvester's "You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)" cue the pigmentation, cascading over bright images of models in fittings, garments hanging from racks, and plenty of DayGlo faux furs. In her version, Bernhard alters the lyrics to pay tribute to Sylvester, whose untimely death left an immense legacy. "Sylvester, sister," Bernhard coos, "You were so beautiful, you were so fragile, you were so . . . real."
But just before Bernhard finishes the word, the song fades to silence, as if to say that realness — genuine authenticity in your life and work, at the cost of criticism — will always be snuffed out before it can be fully appreciated. That is the price of beauty. What is up must always come down.
(Janus Films) Isaac Mizrahi in "Unzipped"
After years in cinematic obscurity — the film hasn't been readily available outside of the eBay market in decades — "Unzipped" will return to theaters later this month, with a loving 4K restoration from Janus Films, just as another fashion-world controversy is heating up. Earlier this week, the Metropolitan Museum of Art declared it would no longer proceed with its Costume Institute's upcoming exhibition honoring John Galliano, scheduled to debut next year. When the scrapped "John Galliano: Horizons" was announced in July, the exhibition was immediately met with an outpouring of criticism. Detractors accused the museum of being tone deaf, citing a 2011 video of Galliano going on a drunken antisemitic and racist rant at a Paris bar, for which Galliano was promptly ousted from his spot as creative director at Dior. Following the video surfacing, Galliano apologized, went to rehab, and, over the last few years, experienced a brand resurgence that some would call a whitewashing.
#mizrahi #bernhard #sense
Douglas Keeve's sublime 1995 documentary, "Unzipped," follows Mizrahi in the aftermath of a train wreck, piecing his reputation back together with his next collection, attempting to make something beautiful from the rubble. We find Mizrahi's world in grayscale, drained of color in the wake of critical and cultural failure. Then, the opening notes of Sandra Bernhard's 1994 cover of Sylvester's "You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)" cue the pigmentation, cascading over bright images of models in fittings, garments hanging from racks, and plenty of DayGlo faux furs. In her version, Bernhard alters the lyrics to pay tribute to Sylvester, whose untimely death left an immense legacy. "Sylvester, sister," Bernhard coos, "You were so beautiful, you were so fragile, you were so . . . real."
But just before Bernhard finishes the word, the song fades to silence, as if to say that realness — genuine authenticity in your life and work, at the cost of criticism — will always be snuffed out before it can be fully appreciated. That is the price of beauty. What is up must always come down.
(Janus Films) Isaac Mizrahi in "Unzipped"
After years in cinematic obscurity — the film hasn't been readily available outside of the eBay market in decades — "Unzipped" will return to theaters later this month, with a loving 4K restoration from Janus Films, just as another fashion-world controversy is heating up. Earlier this week, the Metropolitan Museum of Art declared it would no longer proceed with its Costume Institute's upcoming exhibition honoring John Galliano, scheduled to debut next year. When the scrapped "John Galliano: Horizons" was announced in July, the exhibition was immediately met with an outpouring of criticism. Detractors accused the museum of being tone deaf, citing a 2011 video of Galliano going on a drunken antisemitic and racist rant at a Paris bar, for which Galliano was promptly ousted from his spot as creative director at Dior. Following the video surfacing, Galliano apologized, went to rehab, and, over the last few years, experienced a brand resurgence that some would call a whitewashing.
#mizrahi #bernhard #sense
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