Courtesy of Jewish Book Festival and Isaac Mizrahi
Recently, on a podcast called “10 Things That Scare Me,” Isaac Mizrahi first listed boredom. It’s evident, considering the fashion designer has dabbled in everything from cabaret shows to judging contestants of Project Runway: All Stars to hosting his own show on the shopping network QVC, and, as many St. Louisans will remember, directing (and designing costumes for) the production A Little Night Music with Opera Theatre of St. Louis. Although he doesn’t necessarily consider himself a writer, his debut memoir, I.M., was named a New York Times bestseller after its launch in March.
On November 3, Mizrahi returns to St. Louis—which he fondly remembers for its art museum, toasted ravioli, and “crazy gooey cake”—as the keynote speaker for the 41st annual Jewish Book Festival. Ahead of his keynote speech, Mizrahi tells SLM about growing up gay in a Jewish community, his family’s reaction to his honest memoir, and how that zero tolerance for boredom made the editing process that much easier.
What does it mean to you to be the keynote speaker at an event celebrating other Jewish authors?
IM: I have to say that I'm pleased because the book talks about a different kind of Judaism. It doesn't really speak of a religious belief system. It really speaks a lot about atheism, like, I don't really believe in God, and I don't really practice Judaism, except for that it's in DNA, my heritage. My book speaks so much to that. What’s so exciting and refreshing is that I’ve been doing talks here and there at Jewish centers across America, and I keep expecting for them to like throw stones at me. But it seems to be resonating so much: this idea about finding your own spiritualism as opposed to adhering to any particular one kind of belief system. I’m pleased with the response because writing the book about my moms and sisters in the community, the crazy amount of religion that I grew up around—and my rebellion against it—has a bit of rancor about it... I am very resolved. I found peace in my own situation. I moved away. In the book, there’s a little bit here and there of calling out certain people; certain rabbis; certain people at the yeshiva; certain people I grew up with; even certain things my sisters implemented because they got more and more religious. I call it out a little bit. I was afraid it would be received with ill feelings, but it’s been received incredibly well—even by those I come for a little bit in the book. I thought the yeshiva would be really pissed off at me. I don’t know, I mean I haven’t heard from them. I can’t say they even read it, but you see what I mean. My sisters really officiated the book. My mom really loves the book. Almost everybody in the book got where it was coming from, this place of telling the true story. I’m trying to take out any anger, any rancor, and yet here and there you have to tell something, you have to mention something because it’s a very big and important part of the truth. Being gay, being creative, it’s not the greatest setup in a Jewish community, especially one that fringes on orthodoxy.
Memoir writing is often thought of as an emotional process, what did you learn about yourself while writing yours?
IM: It was a very emotional thing, writing memoir. I would say that I don’t think I shied away from any truth in the book. When I agreed to write the book for Flatiron, I told my mom who is extremely, extremely literate—she reads everything that’s printed, basically—and her first words were, “Oh, God, you have to tell the truth.” I thought, “Wow, that’s great that she’s saying that because she won’t be surprised now when I tell the truth.”
I try to be as much of a gentleman as I possibly can. If I am going to tell a story outside of the realm of something, I’m going to do it in a very nice way. I am going to try to de-claw as much as I possibly can. But occasionally it is very called for to just name a name, say something, talk about how difficult it was, bring shape to it. That was not easy for me as a person who doesn’t usually like to confront. I’m not a wallflower by any means, I’m not shy, but I don’t like fighting. I don’t like bitterness. I’d rather not talk about it. But in the book, I don’t think it’s bitter necessarily, but here and there it does illuminate. I was scared of it. Emotionally, it was very trying to meet that challenge of staying incredibly true and honest to the subject. Emotionally, I learned about myself, I think in the face of a job like this, truth is the most important thing to me. Truth is a big, big thing. It’s not easily put into a box. Truth can be a lot of different things. In the case of this book, it’s my personality coming through. It’s gentlemanly, but it is tough. It’s as tough as it needs to be. Emotionally, that was just not easy. Also, I didn’t show it to anybody, I didn’t show it to my mother until it was actually published.
My mother, of course, kept asking, “When am I going to see the book? When am I going to see the book?” I was like, “Excuse me, it’s my book!” It really was terrifying—emotionally—to give her the book and wait three or four days until she finished it. She’s a very good reader, she practically finished it overnight. She loved it. She read it four times. At one point, she said, “Isaac, thank you for writing this book.” Of course, I burst into tears because so much was on the line between us—she’s old. I so did not want her to die hating me. I do tell a very round story about a great woman and a great loving mother, but also a mother who storms into a bedroom and throws a television on the floor. There’s a lot of stories in the book that are hilarious and dramatic. It’s a very round portrait of her. That was really hard for me to do.
Courtesy of Flatiron Books
Mizrahi's memoir I.M.
Why did you make the decision to not let her or your sisters read the book before it was published?
IM: Because I didn’t want input. I didn’t want them to say, “Oh, do you really have to include that story?” I have one sister who has a son who is a rabbi and her daughter wears a wig. This is a very religious family we’re talking about. I first sent her the book, I think she read like 10 or 15 pages, and she wrote me a text saying, “Wow, your book is great. It’s beautifully written.” Then, I didn’t hear a word from her, because I think that she cannot deal with the atheism of the book, she cannot deal with some of the sex that’s in the book—she can’t deal with it. She doesn’t want to acknowledge that. She can’t look at me and discuss those things.
The other sister was a very emotional scene where she goes, “Oh, I didn’t know! I didn’t know!” I didn’t want to say it, but I was like, “Well, if you didn’t know, you were neglecting your brother because you weren’t looking at me.” But, of course, she was a teenager, so what do I expect? I resented that comment. Then she kind of implied that one or two of the stories about my dad were maybe a little overstated. I said to her, “You know, you were a beautiful young woman. You were head of your class and you were smart, and you were married by the time you were 22. I mean, you were the prototypical Jewish girl. So you don’t get to say to me that I overexaggerated the way our father kind of misunderstood who I was. That’s not OK.” I didn’t want any of that to allot before the book came out.
Did you see any similarities between crafting your own narrative and crafting lines and designs of garments?
IM: I do think there are great similarities. I don’t know who else might be able to grasp [that] because I don’t know if other designers worked the way I worked. I used to go into this crazy, almost meditative sort of bubble of creation, where I didn’t listen to anybody. All I did was create almost a story about a woman’s life from beginning to end on the runway. Starts like this; ends like this. It was really like telling a story. Planning the exits in the show, planning the looks in the show, the casting of a show. It was very much—to me—like fiction writing and plotting the beginning, the middle, and the end of a story about a woman. I think all of those years of doing those fashion shows really come in handy to me as a writer.
Being a fashion designer really is great training for people. As long as they don’t stay fashion designers exclusively, as long as they do other things. I think it’s dangerous if you stay in fashion for your entire life because you become this crazy Type A person who’s just driven crazy by these tiny details. If you get training in fashion and then use it for some other good purpose, like writing a book or something, it really pays off. If nothing else, it teaches you that you have to really keep your ear to the ground, understand what bores people. If you bore people for one second, they are going to leave that show. If you make the wrong decision about a length based on your negligence to be listening or watching, the whole season is blown. It really depends upon someone who has a very short attention span and someone who has a very small threshold for boredom. You have to be really honest: “Oh, God, that bores the daylights out of me! I can’t think about that or look at it for one more second!” It’s great when writing a book, I think, “Oh, I can’t read one more word, I have to move on.”
Was there a section of the book you experienced that with?
IM: There’s a whole bunch of stuff I had to take out, like more stuff about puppets. There was a whole bunch of about summers and how much I don’t like summers and Deal, New Jersey, that I had to take out. There was one thing that I took out that I actually regret a little bit, which is this beautiful chapter about my first summer in Long Island when I was 26 or 24. It was beautifully wrought.
Is there enough cut material to make another book?
IM: I’m actually making notes about things that didn’t get in. I was thinking that my next cabaret show is going to be called something like “Movie Stars and Celebrities,” because I have met literally every single person... I have a story or some kind of crazy thought about every single one of them. It’s not so much a tell-all as it is a watershed of a million stories about people. And some of them are quite hilarious.
If your puppet alter ego Lil’ Isaac wrote his own memoir, what would it entail?
IM: It could be a little bit racier. It could describe a little more of the insane kind of sex life I had in my 30s and 40s. He would probably talk a little more about dressing actresses. Maybe here and there spill the tea about how difficult certain ones were, and how certain ones have broken my heart. It’s thrilling to work with some people, but also heartbreaking. You work on a dress for days and they don’t wear it—that’s not easy. It’s happened 10 times in my life.
See Mizrahi speak at the Jewish Book Festival at 7 p.m. on November 3 and look for him in SLM's October issue.
