Well good evening everyone to The Museum at FIT's Fashion Culture series. We're
going to be seeing the wonderful fashion documentary Unzipped. Not only one of the
best fashion documentaries ever done but certainly one of the funniest
and to top all that off right afterwards we'll have a brief Q&A surprise
with the director Douglas Keeve who's joining us tonight. So the weather
outside is frightful but hopefully tonight it will be delightful seeing
this wonderful film so without any further ado. Well if you don't know the
gentlemen here on stage with me is Douglas Keeve the director of this
fabulous film. We all know Isaac we all know Isaac and we've
known him for a long time and clearly you almost he's like a Energizer Bunny
you just kind of turn him on but Douglas tell us a little bit about you and how
you got into filmmaking. I sort of fell into it. I was a fashion photographer. I
lived in Italy for a while and traveled all over Europe shooting and came to New
York and met Isaac and actually Isaac was my boyfriend at the time of the film
and so it was just kind of very close to home in a sense and but I didn't make
the film because I knew him or because I was with him I made the film cuz he was
amazing and it's just hard to find people like that. I mean there used to be
tons of people I think in the industry all those sort of great dough ends of
fashion who are mostly dead now. The poly melons, the woman, the silver haired woman
who you know she says this erases everything
and I actually spent a couple of years following her around. She was
trained by Diana Vreeland the great fashion icon who ran Vogue and I
followed she was trained by Diana Vreeland she worked at Vogue. I think it
was when Anna Wintour came into Vogue that she dismissed Polly and then
Polly went to Allure and worked under Linda Welles and with Paul Cavaco at
Allure which was and so I followed Polly a little bit at Vogue but mostly in during
her time at Allure and that's been sitting in my archives. I'm about to
start a documentary series but I've had a little bit of time to pull out the
Polly film and I'm gonna start sort of working on that and organizing it so
if there's anyone out there who would like to help me I will I would gladly
have some volunteers. Sounds great. You know one of the things that Doug and I
were talking about earlier is the fact that this production really holds its
own. It was amazing when I saw it all those years ago hate to admit in 1994
and it's still today and I'm wondering Doug if you can talk to us why you think
it still resonates today and why it still has such energy and means
something to us. I think that I love fashion but I always feel like I'm a
bit of an outsider even though I'm sort of in it but I'm sort of not a fashion
person and I made this movie for people who are kind of not in fashion even
though people in fashion it seems to strike a chord and they love it but I
also wanted you know when we screen this movie before it was finished we
showed it to truck drivers and the dishwasher repairman and anybody who I
could get to sit through it to see if it would resonate with everyone because
it's a movie about the creative process you know I think that's where like
there's been so many films about designers and I think people are too
much into the fashion and not into the person and into the creative process and
how they do it, how they think, what
inspires them and you can see that like Isaac with his movies and you aren't and
all that stuff which is amazing so I think that I think people watch this
film because it's about a person. Since you've been a photographer do you think
that having someone with that level of intelligence I mean Isaac is a very very
smart person. He would have been I guess Broadway entertainer / comedian if he
hadn't become a fashion designer. Do you think this is something we've lost today?
The businesses have gotten so big. There's so much money on the line and
the creative process has really been taken away from designers. Do you think
this is one of the reasons why fashion I think is a little bit like this in the
minds of people? Yeah I mean everybody says that I mean I interviewed Josie and
if you know Josie but he was a he is a personality now and and he was
the one who kind of put it succinctly that you know fashion is a business now
it's not it's not the art of like you know you see it in September issue with
Grace Coddington you know that those are the days when you slaved over a picture
because you loved it and because you believed in it. Now it's just business
and numbers and you know and it's just so funny how things have changed
like it shows like that in those days people used to everybody used to line up
and wait and talk to the designer and congratulate the designer because
they loved it and because they wanted to say hi and when you go to shows now like
everybody immediately jumps up and runs to the next show or runs to the next
thing and right you know and you look at the audience there there's no cell
phones there's no you know it's just it's there was an immediacy that is sort
of lost now I think. I think one of the things that's nice about this also and
what I felt Doug that you captured because of course Isaac's the star and he's got
this energy but he's great because of the people around him not just the
people who work for him and his mother of course his great publicist but the
idea that you had models who were hanging around with him. He spent time
with them and I think one of the things that designers say is it's really
important is to build a rapport with the person you're making clothes for. Do you
think this helped Isaac being able to be around not just these beautiful
extraordinary beautiful young women but also the fact that they were friends
and they had this relationship? Yes it was a I don't know it was it was just a
time when yeah when when Linda would come up some people you know well those
girls were busy so a lot of times they'd run out but sometimes they'd stay they'd
hang which was really nice but I think though you know I I don't
think we quite have that today. Linda, Christy, Naomi, Kate, Shalom, Cindy
it's funny to see them in this movie because some of them are on their way up
and some of them are kind of peaked and maybe a little bit on their way down but
I think Isaac talked about those women and loved them and loved dressing them
so I mean they were they had personalities they were all you know I
went to I did a film with Naomi and Kate. We went to Cuba and met not Cuba sorry
we did go to Cuba but we went first to South Africa to meet Mandela. Naomi was
doing a fashion show for Mandela and Naomi was just incredible. She was the
hardest worker I've ever met next to Heidi Klum probably. Naomi has a
photographic memory. She can remember everything. She can remember the shoe she
wore 20 years ago in what picture with you know shooting for Italian Vogue. She
remembers everything and she never loses anything and she goes crazy if she loses
something. Wow all right now I really hate her she's absolutely gorgeous and
she's smart and she's got a good memory which I don't.
I think you know for the audience's here you know when we finish up we're gonna
wrap it up fairly quickly and Doug will be here to speak to you all
individually. I think what do you feel is the takeaway today because you know I've
been watching fashion and you know as a curator being able to look at it from a
different angle. What do you feel about it? Do you still feel excited? Do you still
feel energy and enthusiastic about it? I wish I had more money you know I'm a
freelancer so my career is up and down and when my career is up here then I can
go straight to I don't know Rick Owens or Barney's or wherever and get my
fashion fix. There's nothing better than something beautiful and beautifully made
and that goes way back to the kings and queens and so the whole artisanal part
of fashion is just incredible and magical. Right and if I could say in
closing comments I think the other thing that really comes across this and I
think all of you got it is how human it is you know we get criticized those of
us of who love fashion or sometimes criticized for being rather frivolous
and we hear it more in America perhaps than other countries but I think you
made it human yes there's beauty yes it's a business yes it's glamorous but
there's this humanity that parallels all of it and I think if I could pay the
compliment that's why it resonated with the truck drivers and the Maytag
repairman is that they saw something of a real person in all of that as well so.
Yeah it's just like when what's the movie with Meryl Streep Prada
you know she explains it and you know fashion trickles down to every level and
but that's what gets left behind is art and fashion that's what we look at when
we look back so you know it's uh it's divine. That's great.
Well again thank you all for coming out you know the weather does hinder some of
our energy sometimes but as you can see this film was well worth it and again
Doug is here if you have any comments or questions or if and if you want to
intern he's taking names so anyway thank you so much.
Thank you.