The Isaac Mizrahi fall 1994 collection is back in the cultural conversation, and this time it arrives in four-times-the-original resolution. Janus Films has acquired the North American rights to a newly restored 4K edition of Unzipped, Douglas Keeve’s 1995 documentary about the making of that collection, set to open in New York on 25 September before expanding nationwide.
For anyone who missed the original run, the timing is a good excuse to catch up on one of fashion’s most genuinely entertaining documents.
What the Isaac Mizrahi Fall 1994 Show Actually Was
The collection was presented in the tents at Bryant Park on 12 April 1994, during only the second season New York Fashion Week had called Bryant Park home. Crayola-coloured puffers, faux furs, marled knits, pom-poms and sock-shoes: the aesthetic was cosy and theatrical in equal measure, which is really the whole Mizrahi brand in a single sentence.
The supermodel roll call was not subtle. WWD’s coverage documented Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista, Kate Moss, Carla Bruni, and Padma Lakshmi on the runway. Peak supermodeldom, as advertised.
Mizrahi added one more layer of theatre by setting up a scrim between backstage and the front of house, so the audience could watch models dressing and undressing before their exits. Vogue called it a ‘voyeuristic thrill.’ The designer’s own framing was characteristically direct: ‘The whole thing has to do with being slightly naughty, and that’s what these clothes are about. It used to be that wearing black was witchy and naughty, but now it’s so obvious. Now color is really the provocative thing. Yes, the tables have turned.’
The Panic Before the Applause
Getting there was not painless. In the nineties, Paris opened the season and New York closed it. When WWD put a look from Jean Paul Gaultier’s Inuit-inspired, ‘trans-Siberian’ collection on its cover, Mizrahi’s team panicked: he had drawn on Nanook of the North, the 1922 silent docufiction, as a source. In retrospect, the two collections diverge sharply. Gaultier reconstructed a snowscape; Mizrahi leaned into theatre and colour.
The WWD review of the fall 1994 show, which Mizrahi anxiously reads in one of Unzipped‘s final scenes, turned out to be overwhelmingly positive. It opened with ‘Isaac Mizrahi really knows how to put on a show’ and closed with ‘The man’s got a hit on his hands,’ though it also flagged several ‘kinks.’ The palette it praised: ‘powder blue, cranberry, orange aqua and a plethora of pinks, poodle, pepto, powder and pez.’
Unzipped: More Than a Fashion Film
Unzipped began at Sundance in January 1995, screened at the 48th Cannes Film Festival in May 1995, and has been a fixture of fashion-school syllabuses ever since. Director Keeve was clear about what he thought he had made. As he told the Sundance Institute: ‘I don’t like calling it a fashion documentary. I think it is a documentary about the creative process, about business, about passion.’
The film’s creation came at a cost. Keeve was then in a relationship with Mizrahi, and the editing process ended it. In his memoir IM (Flatiron Books), Mizrahi wrote that ‘too many awful things were said in the final days of editing, and we were clear with each other that it was over from that point.’ Mizrahi attended the Cannes screening without Keeve.
None of which diminishes the film. If anything, that friction is legible on screen.
Why the Rerelease Matters Now
Mizrahi is a four-time CFDA award winner, including Best Newcomer and Designer of the Year for Womenswear in 1989 and 1991. The fall 1994 collection sits at the centre of his legacy, partly because of what was on the runway and partly because of what Keeve put on film around it.
The 4K restoration means audiences can actually see what all the praise was about, rather than squinting through a heavily compressed stream. Whether the restored print reveals something new about the clothes, or simply confirms what was always obvious to anyone paying attention, seems like the right question to bring to a cinema seat in September.
