The Isaac Mizrahi Pictures: New York City 1989–1993
Photographs by Nick Waplington
Waplington’s informal vérité portrait of American fashion designer Mizrahi’s studio and runway shows of the late 1980s and early ’90s
From 1989 to 1993, New York fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi granted the British photographer Nick Waplington rare backstage access to photograph every detail of the designer’s fitting sessions in the weeks before his twice-yearly fashion shows. Combining Waplington’s gritty vérité style with Mizrahi’s haute couture sensibilities, the resulting images offer a candid glimpse into the world of fashion when supermodels including Cindy Crawford, Christy Turlington and Naomi Campbell reigned supreme. At the same time, Waplington set out to document the wildly creative nightlife of the ’90s "club kid" culture in New York, juxtaposing his images of uptown style with downtown looks and taking pictures at some of the city’s most infamous clubs, such as the Pyramid Club and Save the Robots. Artist and photographer Nick Waplington (born 1970) has published several monographs, including Living Room and The Wedding (Aperture), Safety in Numbers (Booth Clibborn), Truth or Consequences (Phaidon) and Alexander McQueen: Working Process (Damiani). He lives in London and New York. Isaac Mizrahi (born 1961) has been a leader in the fashion industry for almost 30 years. In 1995 he was the subject of the award-winning documentary, Unzipped. In 2003 Mizrahi pioneered the concept of merging high design with mass retail in partnership with Target. He has designed costumes for the New York Metropolitan Opera, the American Ballet Theater and the San Francisco Ballet. Mizrahi is the author of How to Have Style and has been head judge on Lifetime’s Project Runway: All Stars.
Featured image is reproduced from The Isaac Mizrahi Pictures: New York City 1989–1993.
PRAISE AND REVIEWS
The New York Times
Jamie Sims
The photographer Nick Waplington’s new book captures a lately much longed-for cultural moment in New York City’s history, when supermodels ruled the runways and club kids held court at all hours.
Out Magazine
Julien Sauvalle
This monograph offers a fascinating snapshot of an adventurous era known for its bubblegum-colored clothes, oversize platform shoes, and fizzy part scene.
i-D
Alice Newell-Hanson
While Isaac's brand has gone through many incarnations, Waplington's images capture what was so inspiring about its first eruption onto the New York fashion scene: the head-spinning colors, fearlessness, and glamorous theatricality. They also show the energy and intimacy of Mizrahi's studio.
W Magazine Online
Stephanie Eckardt
Like Waplington’s McQueen exhibition at the Tate Britain last year – the museum’s first-ever solo show by a photographer – the book is studded with other subjects to keep it from being purely biographical... with Mizrahi, it’s Waplington’s diary of the ’90s club scene.
CNN
The Isaac Mizrahi Pictures: High fashion and hedonism in 80s New York. British photographer Nick Waplington spent four years in the late 80s documenting behind-the-scenes at Isaac Mizrahi's fashion house by day and New York's heady club scene by night. The result is a snapshot of a vibrant vanished moment in the city's cultural history.
The New York Journal of Books
Jeffrey Felner
The photographer offers a visual smorgasbord that can be selectively viewed or interpreted. No question that the photographer has offered an amazingly keen eye when it comes to assembling the contents of this book... There is value in its viewing in that the millennial reader will only know Isaac [Mizrahi] from QVC and that this era of NYC clubbing no longer exists in any way. For the older reader, it might serve as a wonderful reminder of days gone by.
Milk Studios
Jocelyn Silver
Bold and bright and exciting.
NewYork.com
Mary-Louise Foss
A sparkling nugget of cultural history of NYC.
Paper
Christopher Barnard
Whereas most designer monographs are prone to elision and calculation Pictures... is as offhand as it is precise. Yes there is Christy, Linda, and Naomi arranged effortlessly during a fitting or backstage but on the next page club kids and drag queens grind and jeer. The effect is shocking fun.
Vogue.com
Suzanne Shaheen
Selected for Vogue.com's Best Photo Books of Spring 2016
STATUS: Out of stock
Temporarily out of stock pending additional inventory.
"During the summer of 1989, I regularly visited Richard Avedon in his Upper East Side studio. On each visit we would share work and discuss art, sometimes he would cook me dinner and occasionally we would take trips to exhibits. That fall, Avedon introduced me to the fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi—he thought that despite our very different backgrounds we would get on and should work together. Luckily, he was right, and so for the next three years I spent time photographing the goings-on behind the scenes in the Mizrahi fashion house in downtown SoHo. Some of the pictures ended up in advertisements designed by Tibor Kalman… the rest have not been seen until now." Featured image captures studio regular André Leon Talley consulting with Mizrahi and model. continue to blog
Featured photograph, of model Christy Turlington doing behind-the-scenes makeup prep for Isaac Mizrahi's Spring 1991 runway show, is reproduced from Nick Wapplington's new photography book, The Isaac Mizrahi Pictures: New York City 1989–1993, published just in time for the Jewish Museum's current retrospective, Isaac Mizrahi: An Unruly History, opening today. "It was a strange time," Wapplington writes, "by day I would be taking pictures of the glamorous world of fashion in the era of the supermodels, and by night I would go out to the house and techno music clubs I loved, particularly Save the Robots and the Sound Factory, and take pictures there." This highly anticipated followup to Wapplington's 2013 book on Alexander McQueen brings the photographer's day- and nightlife together in one cohesive picture of that world, at that time. continue to blog
The NYC club scene of the late-80s and early-90s was a world unto itself—before Giuliani decided to clean up the city, before the development boom, before the invasion of the new one percent. From 1989-1993, British photographer Nick Wapplington documented the clubs at night, following his day job taking pictures of fitting sessions at Isaac Mizrahi's downtown studio—before Mizrahi sold a share of his company to Chanel, before the documentary movie Unzipped. In his Foreword to The Isaac Mizrahi Pictures, published to accompany Mizrahi's current exhibition at the Jewish Museum, Wapplington explains that he has "juxtaposed the two sets of images here to produce a work which describes the vibrancy of a vanished moment in New York's cultural history." continue to blog
THURSDAY, MARCH 31, Rizzoli, Damiani and ARTBOOK | D.A.P. invite you to celebrate the publication of The Isaac Mizrahi Pictures: New York City 1989-1993 with photographs by Nick Waplington. Mizrahi and Waplington will appear in conversation with PAPER magazine editor Mickey Boardman from 6-7:30 PM. Book signing to follow! continue to blog
FORMAT: Hbk, 9.75 x 11.25 in. / 168 pgs / 119 color. LIST PRICE: U.S. $50.00 LIST PRICE: CANADA $67.5 ISBN: 9788862084512 PUBLISHER: Damiani AVAILABLE: 3/22/2016 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Active AVAILABILITY: Out of stock TERRITORY: NA LA
The Isaac Mizrahi Pictures: New York City 1989–1993 Photographs by Nick Waplington
Published by Damiani.
Waplington’s informal vérité portrait of American fashion designer Mizrahi’s studio and runway shows of the late 1980s and early ’90s
From 1989 to 1993, New York fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi granted the British photographer Nick Waplington rare backstage access to photograph every detail of the designer’s fitting sessions in the weeks before his twice-yearly fashion shows. Combining Waplington’s gritty vérité style with Mizrahi’s haute couture sensibilities, the resulting images offer a candid glimpse into the world of fashion when supermodels including Cindy Crawford, Christy Turlington and Naomi Campbell reigned supreme. At the same time, Waplington set out to document the wildly creative nightlife of the ’90s "club kid" culture in New York, juxtaposing his images of uptown style with downtown looks and taking pictures at some of the city’s most infamous clubs, such as the Pyramid Club and Save the Robots. Artist and photographer
Nick Waplington (born 1970) has published several monographs, including Living Room and The Wedding (Aperture), Safety in Numbers (Booth Clibborn), Truth or Consequences (Phaidon) and Alexander McQueen: Working Process (Damiani). He lives in London and New York.
Isaac Mizrahi (born 1961) has been a leader in the fashion industry for almost 30 years. In 1995 he was the subject of the award-winning documentary, Unzipped. In 2003 Mizrahi pioneered the concept of merging high design with mass retail in partnership with Target. He has designed costumes for the New York Metropolitan Opera, the American Ballet Theater and the San Francisco Ballet. Mizrahi is the author of How to Have Style and has been head judge on Lifetime’s Project Runway: All Stars.
