Isaac Mizrahi: My dog has a ‘Napoleon complex’
His last cabaret show was titled “Does This Song Make Me Look Fat?” Now comes “Isaac Mizrahi: Moderate to Severe,” running through Feb. 10 at Café Carlyle. “It’s me going a little deeper about all the things I’ve spoken about before, like my weight fluctuations and my adulation of prescription drugs, with all new songs,” the 56-year-old fashion designer says. The longtime West Villager tells BARBARA HOFFMAN where he and husband Arnold Germer spend their weekends.
I always go swimming at Manhattan Plaza Health Club. It’s nowhere near where I live, but it has a great swimming pool. I’ve tried pools in the Village, but I feel like an interloper at NYU and the pool at Equinox doesn’t have any sunlight. This one does.
After that, I usually meet my husband at Elephant & Castle. I’m at this age where I’m not looking for a scene, I’m looking to sit down and have an actual breakfast — an egg-white omelet — and be done in half an hour.
After I take a nap, I like to go to different galleries in Little Italy. There’s one I love very much: the Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery. It’s a sneaky little place that’s hard to find. There’s always some kind of insane show, either by one artist or a group, and it’s always very fresh. I feel slightly old when I leave because everyone there’s so young.
One of my favorite places is the dog run in Washington Square Park. It’s so gorgeous and fun, and everyone’s so nice. We have a mixed beagle and Jack Russell terrier, Dean, who has a Napoleon complex — he’s not very big, so he’s always humping bigger dogs. We’re like, “Really, Dean?”
I’m in Bridgehampton a lot during the week and in the city on the weekend, so that’s when I venture out to the theater. There’s a different crowd of people on the weekends. If you go to a musical, everyone’s dancing in the aisles and they give everything a standing ovation. I [recently] saw “The Band’s Visit.” Oh my God, how great is that? I was literally sobbing and downloading the soundtrack as I was leaving the theater.
For years I’ve been looking in the windows of a little flower shop [University Floral Design] near La Petite Coquette, that great lingerie place — if you ever need a special bra, go there. That flower shop’s so cute and chic. When that closes, I’m moving.