American fashion designer and performer Isaac Mizrahi was BOTD in 1961. Born in Brooklyn, New York to a Syrian Jewish family of clothing manufacturers, he bought his first sewing machine when he was 10 and began designing and making clothes. He later attended the High School of Performing Arts in New York City, appearing briefly in Alan Parker’s 1980 film Fame. After studying at the Parsons School of Design, he worked for designer Perry Ellis and Calvin Klein, presenting his first designer collection at Bergdorf Goodman department store in 1987. Known for his colourful, off-beat and eclectic designs, often referencing films and pop culture, he attracted celebrity clients including Nicole Kidman, Julia Roberts and Sarah Jessica Parker, and collaborated with choreographers Twyla Tharp, Bill T. Jones and Mark Morris. In 1992, the Chanel fashion house bought a stake in his company and began bankrolling his operations. An innate performer, he was the amusing subject of the 1995 documentary Unzipped, directed by his soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend Douglas Keeve, profiling the creation of his 1994 Fall collection, including fake fur-lined jackets inspired by the 1922 film Nanook of the North. Despite popular acclaim, his tendency to change creative direction each season made his sales and profit margins highly unpredictable. In 1998, Chanel withdrew their funding, forcing Mizrahi to close his fashion label. Undeterred, he wrote, produced and starred in a one-man show Les MIZrahi, designed costumes for a Broadway revival of the play The Women and launched the short lived TV chat show The Isaac Mizrahi Show. In 2003, he began designing ready-to-wear clothes for the Target department store chain, which revived his fortunes. After a brief and disastrous partnership with Liz Claiborne, Mizrahi sold his label to Xcel Brands, remaining a shareholder and creative director. Now arguably more famous as a personality than as a designer, he has made cameos as himself in TV series Sex and the City, Ugly Betty, The Apprentice and Gossip Girl, followed by a seven-year stint as a judge on reality TV competition series Project Runway All Stars. In 2016, the first major retrospective of his career, Isaac Mizrahi: An Unruly History, opened at the Jewish Museum in New York City. Openly gay since forever, he came out publicly in a New York magazine article in 1990. He is married to his long term partner Arnold Germer, with whom he lives in New York City.