The 1995 cult documentary Unzipped, chronicling the evolution of Isaac Mizrahi’s Fall 1994 collection, has been out of circulation for three decades, but has never entirely disappeared from the collective fashion unconscious. I, for one, can still recount the movie nearly dress by dress. Fashion curator Pamela Golbin, who appears in the Paris portion of the film, says she “remembers it as if it was yesterday.” Scheduled at last for re-release by Janus on September 25, at Film Forum in Manhattan, Unzipped uncorks a time capsule, letting loose a delectable stream of 90s nostalgia.
Director Douglas Keeve (Mizrahi’s then boyfriend), whose hovering camera probes into traditionally off-limits, beneath-the-veil territory, had no corporate constraints placed on him. No one in the film once utters the word “brand”; that soul-less term was not yet common parlance. More striking still is the total absence of venality—nobody discusses the commercial viability of a single article of clothing, much less makes quarterly projections for the company. Mizrahi’s whole enterprise, and the film covering it, concentrates on artistry, fantasy, and creation, taking in the inevitable messiness, moodiness, and humor that arise along the way. Celebrities surface throughout the movie, not because they were Mizrahi’s paid “ambassadors” (these transactional appointments didn’t really exist yet) but because they were friends and well-wishers who, if they wore the clothes, actually bought them.