“I want you to know that I love the women who buy my clothes unconditionally,” Isaac Mizrahi says with an impish grin at the opening of the Symphony Fashion Show on April 20. Since he was sharing the stage with Karen and Kimberly from Little Big Town, both wearing his dresses, that was probably a good thing—but based on the collection we saw, there’s no question he meant it. And that’s not just because they spend serious dollars to do it. This designer loves women’s bodies, and the runway was covered with looks both wearable and impossibly glamorous.
Photographer Katie Horrell and I had the good fortune to sit in on Mizrahi’s press conference earlier in the evening, and his candor and his absolute delight in his work was very much in evidence. I’d had the good fortune to interview him at length by phone back before Fashion Week, and we’d discussed his Spring 2010 collection (see our April issue), so I was thrilled to get to hear about the Fall line before we got to see it up close and in person.
It’s influenced by his love of New York’s Central Park. “It’s sort of an urban fairy tale,” he says with clear delight. “I just imagined sprites and fairies running around the Park and it grew from that.” Whether he’s been reading the latest NYT bestsellers by Jim Butcher or Sherrilyn Kenyon on that theme or not, he’s tapped into a vision that translates into an amazing reality. Ultimately, it combines an outdoor aesthetic with a touch of ruggedness with an ethereal element of romance.
The color palette was clearly fall—brown, khaki green, camel, beige, and gray, touched with tones in autumn maple leaf orange, gold, metallics of bronze, brass and silver, coral and—one of my favorites—a long, liquid, quicksilver twist on a sheath dress that shone silver in some lights, charcoal in others. Teases of fur hear and there—on handbags, hoods and the like, along with one or two coats—served as more accent than dominant flavor.
Jewelry was also Central Park-centric, whimsical pieces made of rhinestones combined with resin copies of actual park rocks—a risk that might have been simply an oddity, but with Mizrahi’s creative mind were elevated to delicious whimsy, and utterly wearable pieces.
Fabrications ranged from draping silk and elegantly moving paillettes to a wool-silk blend that gave graceful shape to a garment that might otherwise have been simply ephemeral. The patterning and draping was exquisite, as were the finishings—something that all too often goes by the wayside these days, even in so-called couture. These are clothes that will fit and flatter when they’re on real bodies, and that makes for a feel-good show.
Mizrahi continued his discussion, branching into what he feels makes a woman look sexy. “It’s got to be something that makes her feel good, and sometimes there’s nothing less sexy than a ‘sexy dress,’ if you get what I’m saying?” he says.
We get it. Mizrahi has sexy down—not in a lingerie “overly corseted and over-exposed” kind of way, but definitely in one that combines old Hollywood glam with a little bit of fantastical magic, a tinge of outside brought in and a hint of industrial New York thrown into the pot. This isn’t a Postmodern look, but a very, very wearable of-the-moment one—and Nashville should be proud to be part of it, and to wear it ourselves.
(And you can check out his latest looks at Gus Meyer at The Mall at Green Hills right now).