Top 50 Isaac Mizrahi Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “The Moon is such a planet I can’t even stand it.”

— Isaac Mizrahi

2. “When someone says you can’t do what you know you can do, then you can’t do anything.”

— Isaac Mizrahi

3. “Color is like food for the spirit – plus it’s not addictive or fattening.”

— Isaac Mizrahi

4. “I encourage you to stop saying, “I just want to look not so bad” and instead say, “I want to look fabulous.””

— Isaac Mizrahi

5. “The more relaxed you can get, the better you’ll do.”

— Isaac Mizrahi

6. “If you feel something in your heart, if you have a vision for it, then it’s no longer a risk.”

— Isaac Mizrahi

7. “I equate peonies with love because they’re the first blooms of summer.”

— Isaac Mizrahi

8. “Style makes you feel great because it takes your mind off the fact that you’re going to die.”

— Isaac Mizrahi

9. “A mutt is couture-it’s the only one like it in the world, made especially for you.”

— Isaac Mizrahi

10. “A bathroom should be sterile and beautiful and functional. It should exude Japanese-style purity.”

— Isaac Mizrahi

11. “50s cheesecake meets Eskimo fake fur.”

— Isaac Mizrahi

12. “Even though I grew up as a Sephardic Jew in Brooklyn where we ate Syrian food and went to temple, it was still America.”

— Isaac Mizrahi

13. “How do I do it? I don’t know how I wouldn’t do it-that’s the thing.”

— Isaac Mizrahi

14. “This is what I like about being a designer: You can’t really get it until you see it.”

— Isaac Mizrahi

15. “Most of my life I was occupied with American television and American food. My ethnicity was my choice. It still is.”

— Isaac Mizrahi

16. “The reason people like to watch ball games is because they don’t really know exactly what’s going to happen from moment to moment. That’s why you watch the entire thing.”

— Isaac Mizrahi

17. “Flirting is conversational chemistry.”

— Isaac Mizrahi

18. “I’m all about exuberance. We only have one short life to live, and we shouldn’t waste it being tasteful.”

— Isaac Mizrahi

19. “You can’t be melancholy in fashion because people don’t respond to it.”

— Isaac Mizrahi

20. “I’d love to talk to Joaquin Phoenix because he’s a very private guy. Also, he’s creating a new kind of sexy leading man. To me, his face is new and might be legendary someday.”

— Isaac Mizrahi

21. “There’s no reason for unhappiness if you’re living with nice design.”

— Isaac Mizrahi

22. “Remember this: No one is looking at your imperfections; they’re all too busy worrying about their own.”

— Isaac Mizrahi

23. “I have a lot of obligations.”

— Isaac Mizrahi

24. “All I want are high heels, high heels. If I was a girl, I’d wear a lot of high heels. High, stiletto heels.”

— Isaac Mizrahi

25. “You’re not working with models, you’re working with real women who have, like, anatomy. Models do not have anatomy.”

— Isaac Mizrahi

26. “I don’t like people to feel completely described by the clothes they wear of mine. I want them to feel that they’re describing themselves.”

— Isaac Mizrahi

27. “Half the time I don’t even think about it, I just throw something on because I’m so late or so busy.”

— Isaac Mizrahi

28. “Just when I think I hate fashion, I hate clothes, I’m seized by this crazy thing that I have to do. I have this little studio now where I just draw. I can be in the room for three days and not even look up.”

— Isaac Mizrahi

29. “I don’t want to offend people.”

— Isaac Mizrahi

30. “This, I think, is what occurs when a woman sees a shoe or bag or hat that she feels she must have. She doesn’t think, Oh my god, I wish that were me. She thinks, Oh my god, that is so me. She doesn’t want it because she’s aspiring to be someone she’s not; she wants it because she already feels like that woman on the inside.”

— Isaac Mizrahi

31. “If I just do it, it will take less time than telling someone what I’m thinking, and have them free associate, and then come back to me and I’ll hate it and I’ll have to redo it.”

— Isaac Mizrahi

32. “A gift to mankind; the next Elizabeth Taylor in the making.”

— Isaac Mizrahi

33. “I think that 60 percent of inspiration is organization.”

— Isaac Mizrahi

34. “I’d love to talk to Angelina Jolie. On my show I would love her because she’s a mysterious, mysterious figure.”

— Isaac Mizrahi

35. “The last thing I want to become is one of those talking heads where everything is satiny smooth and you know what the next question is going to be.”

— Isaac Mizrahi

36. “You don’t necessarily live for the moment; you live for hope-what you’re going to get, what you’re going to say, what you’re going to think.”

— Isaac Mizrahi

37. “To me, you can’t have style without being inspired. When I design a collection, I am inspired by so many things. The color of a flower. The shape of a butterly’s wing. The juxtaposition of an old tenement building next to a shiny new skyscraper.”

— Isaac Mizrahi

38. “People say it’s really the press who create those soundbites about fashion. That’s what sells magazines and clothes.”

— Isaac Mizrahi

39. “You know what makes me teary? Goya. Goya makes me cry.”

— Isaac Mizrahi

40. “What you do, you don’t think of as a product.”

— Isaac Mizrahi

41. “What if Woody Allen called me and said, I’m working on this movie and there’s a really divine role for you. We want exactly you! It would be such a fantasy. Forget it! My idol, Woody Allen!”

— Isaac Mizrahi

42. “There are so many images out there, so many clothes out there, and the only ones that look interesting to me are the ones that look slightly mistaken.”

— Isaac Mizrahi

43. “You know who a role model for me is? George Ballanchine.”

— Isaac Mizrahi

44. “It’s no wonder we know how to dress; we’ve spent centuries in closets.”

— Isaac Mizrahi

45. “Riding the subway home felt like floating in a bubble. It was a small, encouraging sample of the freedom that existed when I was left to my own wits in New York City. I knew from that experience that if I could get away, I could give myself what really mattered, and I wouldn’t need anyone’s help. From that day forward I knew I could take care of myself.”

— Isaac Mizrahi

46. “When people ask, Do you like children? I always say, I like some children, yes. Some children I don’t like.”

— Isaac Mizrahi

47. “If you try to have a fashion show with Bach fugues and John Coltrane, it doesn’t really work.”

— Isaac Mizrahi

48. “Sometimes I’m really dressed up, and it really turns me on.”

— Isaac Mizrahi

49. “In Paris, it used to feel like you were living in a museum. As beautiful as it was, it’s still limited. But here you have just everything.”

— Isaac Mizrahi

50. “I’m not trying to be the next Joan Rivers.”

— Isaac Mizrahi