Isaac Mizrahi: From Following Mom Into The Fitting Room, To Fashion Fame
Growing up in an Orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn, Mizrahi says he stood out like "a chubby, gay thumb." He's written about his unlikely path into the fashion industry in his new memoir, I.M.
Fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi opens his new memoir, I.M., in the toy aisle at the Avenue U Variety Store. It's the mid-1960s, and he desperately wants a deluxe Barbie set — which comes with a doll and three outfits. Unfortunately for 5-year-old Mizrahi, a Barbie was "the exact thing that would label a kid in those days as someone who was a freak," he says.
Growing up in a Syrian, Orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn, Mizrahi says he stood out like "a chubby, gay thumb." He did not get a deluxe Barbie that day. As a consolation prize, Mizrahi received
