Reading iconic fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi's witty and disarmingly candid memoir is like sitting down with a smart, warm and opinionated friend who effortlessly captivates with tales of triumphs, failures and perseverance. Mizrahi begins his memoir as a pudgy and insecure gay boy growing up in a Syrian Jewish Orthodox family in Brooklyn, N.Y. "I've always identified more as a woman than anything," writes Mizrahi, "and if times were different I might have chosen to become a female in appearance; in a lot of ways I operated in the family like a third daughter more than an only son." After eight years at a yeshiva school, Mizrahi was accepted at a Manhattan performing arts high school and began to bloom.
At 15, he launched his own fashion line, creating clothing so outrageous that the outfits gained him and his teenaged friends entrance to the notoriously exclusive dance club Studio 54. During these years, he writes, "The gay culture in that world nourished me in some ways and fed my self-loathing in others." The workload of designing also hindered his sex life. "One traded one's sex life for a life of fashion servitude," he writes. "We were referred to as 'Fashion Nuns.' " Then, his friends and coworkers began dying from a mysterious new disease called AIDS.
There's plenty of star-studded gossip and insider information (he and Sandra Bernhard considered having a child together). But mostly I.M. is a heartfelt and inspiring memoir told with candor and style. It'll be catnip for book clubs. --Kevin Howell, independent reviewer and marketing consultant