Books |
Fashion Icons 2: Fashion Lives with Fern Mallis
By
Published: Jun 21, 2022
Category:
Fashion
Anna Wintour is the Queen of Fashion? If you’re a civilian, you may believe that. You surely believed Meryl Streep was the Queen of Fashion when she starred in “The Devil Wears Prada.” And you may be convinced all over again when “The Devil Wears Prada” — a musical, with songs by Elton John — opens on Broadway. But the harsh reality is that the “Fashion” Anna Wintour rules nearly died in the pandemic and is anemic and largely irrelevant now, as the wafer-thin fashion magazines prove each month. At the current rate of attrition, Condé Nast will be sold for parts.
You may have never heard of Fern Mallis, but she is far more important than Anna Wintour. As the Godmother of Fashion, she stands slightly off to the side, no publicist in sight because no publicist is needed — for decades, she has been the publicist for American designers, who used to be considered inferior to Europeans and are now household names and megabrands. She created New York Fashion Week, which organized shows scattered all over town into one convenient tent city. She was instrumental in the first fashion industry response to the AIDS crisis and fashion’s breast cancer campaign, which raised $100 million. She was executive director of the Council of Fashion Designers of America.
In 2010, she began hosting a conversation series, “Fashion Icons with Fern Mallis,” at the 92nd Street Y. This conversation series with industry heavyweights was an instant hit, consistently selling out. In 2015, she published Fashion Icons, a 448-page, 5.5 pound barbell of a book, with 19 interviews: Norma Kamali, Calvin Klein, Tom Ford, Donna Karan, with many never-before-seen photographs. While others were sidelined during the two Covid years, she collected 15 more interviews. “Fashion Icons 2,” this one filling 480 pages, has just been published, with equally compelling interviews: Christian Siriano, Billy Porter, Bob Mackie, Tm Gunn, Leonard Lauder, Valentino. [To buy the book from Amazon, click here.]
Why are these important books?
Because they are not just about Fashion. Let Mallis explain:
“The world knows these names on a label. They see them inside a garment, on a box or a shopping bag, but these ‘names’ are people. My conversations with the designers are not, ‘Tell me about spring 1995 versus fall 2000,’ they are about ‘Tell me where you grew up. Tell me about your parents. What did your bedroom look like?’ You find out things that all of a sudden make you look at these people in a whole new light and understanding of who they are.”
And what do we see?
“So many of the designers tell me about reinventing their lives and how to triumph from failure, start over again, and become successful.”
Those stories are a masterclass on starting a fashion business. They’re almost as helpful for those who are launching any business in which the creator — her/his vision, her/his values, her/his heritage — is essentially the product. (Mallis, ever practical, offers practical advice: “Get a lawyer.”)
Best of all, your education comes in the form of stories, which are always the best way to learn. Mallis is a terrific interviewer. She researches obsessively, which shows respect for her guests. And she has known these designers for decades; they respect her. Valentino: “Never in my life have I said so many things like tonight. I’m going to tell you which underwear I am wearing.” Mallis: “Tell us.”
So when Calvin Klein, her second interview way back when, sat down, this was her first question: “‘Why are you here? You sold your business 10 years ago. You have nothing to sell, you’re not launching a fragrance, you’re not promoting something new.’ And he said, ‘I’m here because you asked me.’ And I said, ‘Good answer.’ And then I got everyone…”
In Volume 2, Leonard Lauder tells how, starting in the first grade, he deposited a nickel a week into a savings account. When he was 18, his parents were in Europe. The company couldn’t make the payroll. He gutted his savings account to cover it. Later, he’d disciple his love of art by buying postcards.
Christian Siriano, whose application was rejected by FIT, has an unstoppable spirit. He made a dress that the then-unknown Lady Gaga wore on her first TV appearance. Later, when he was a star, he befuddled the fashion world by signing a contract with Payless — and then designed the dress that Michelle Obama wore at the 2016 Democrat National Convention. The moral: “Say ‘yes’ to yourself.”
Billy Porter reveals that his stepfather abused him from age 7 to 13. His family was religious, but there was no help from the church. “I had to save myself,” he tells Mallis. Which he does regularly onstage and on cable series like “Pose.”
The jaw-dropping interview in “Fashion Icons 2” is with Tim Gunn. On “Project Runway,” he embodied kindness and empathy. Here we find out why. His father was with J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI for 26 years; he offered no help to his son, who was bullied for reasons he didn’t grasp. In his early teens, Gunn swallowed “a couple hundred aspirin” and spent the next two years at Yale New Haven Hospital, learning to accept and like himself. He’d go on to be the dean of fashion at Parsons, a fashion executive, a TV icon — and so honest he told the New York Post he saw two bodyguards carry Anna Wintour down five flights of stairs after a fashion show. Imagine the blowback. Picture Tim Gunn, not walking it back.
Mallis is just that direct. You’ll recall that Kim Kardashian recently damaged an iconic Marilyn Monroe dress by wearing it on the Met Gala red carpet. Here’s Mallis, on Page 6 in the Post: “The problem with the Marilyn/Kim episode is that the dress was at Ripley’s Believe It or Not. The dress deserved to be at a museum where nobody could wear it and touch it. It really is an iconic piece of art and American history.” [Kardashian changed, and wore a replica to the dinner.] “She could have worn the knockoff from the get-go and nobody would have cared. It would have gotten the message out.”
Truth, often in short supply at the upper echelons of businesses like Fashion, isn’t just for designers and executives. Fern Mallis is clear-eyed about her own life: “The tents were like Brigadoon: They were there and then they were gone. The books are real.” And the books will become a streaming series that will endure. Yes, it’s the Buddhist truth: Serve others, and find your happiness there. It’s also “she who laughs last…”
