Three Decades Ago, He Made a Documentary About Then-Boyfriend Isaac Mizrahi — Now, Douglas Keeve Is Looking Back at ‘Unzipped’ — SkimNews
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- "Unzipped" returns to theaters in 4K from Janus Films, restored by the Sundance Institute and UCLA Film & Television Archive, now playing at Film Forum in New York with a Los Angeles expansion on October 9
- Douglas Keeve was romantically involved with rising designer Isaac Mizrahi when he directed the vérité documentary, which follows Mizrahi preparing his 1994 "Nanook of the North"-inspired collection for Paris Fashion Week
- The film won an audience award at the 1995 Sundance Film Festival and features Naomi Campbell, Christy Turlington, Linda Evangelista, Cindy Crawford, and Kate Moss as runway models in a range of "on-camera savviness"
- Chanel held a majority financial stake in the Isaac Mizrahi fashion house during filming — a decade before Mizrahi launched his widely known ready-to-wear diffusion line at Target stores
- Keeve and Mizrahi's relationship ended shortly after the Sundance premiere; Keeve told IndieWire the movie "had nothing to do with our breakup" despite the external pressures of finishing the film on deadline
- Linda Evangelista delivers what Keeve calls a standout sequence — repeated backstage "hissy fits" he reads as a deliberate performance for the camera, ending with a stare Keeve describes as "I dare you to judge me"
Why it matters: The 4K re-release preserves a candid portrait of Mizrahi before his mainstream Target-era fame and a snapshot of 1990s New York fashion — an era currently driving nostalgia through projects like the recently released "Love Story: John F. Kennedy & Carolyn Bessette." For documentary audiences, Keeve's interviews reframe "Unzipped" as an artifact of a personal relationship, not just a fashion chronicle, raising the question of what an intimate filmmaker owes a subject who is also an ex.
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