It hasn't always been pulsing catwalks, Champagne-fueled parties and celebrity hobnobbing for fashion's superstar designers. Such is the take-away in the new book "Fashion Lives" (Rizzoli, $55) by Fern Mallis, the industry stalwart best known for founding New York Fashion Week in 1993 — and igniting a February 2015 feud with Kanye West.
Out Tuesday, the tome collects 19 transcripts from Mallis' "Inside the Actors Studio"-style lectures at the 92nd Street Y. It offers candid personal accounts from style-world luminaries, many of whom got their start in and around NYC. Here are five of the book's most surprising revelations, from Tommy Hilfiger's denim hustle to Michael Kors' short-lived career as a child actor.
Sherry baby
Donna Karan fitting a model while at Parsons, and today.Photo: Parsons School of Design; Getty Images
Before she started dressing generations of famous women (her fan base includes both Barbara Streisand and Rita Ora), Donna Karan, 66, was a teenage aspiring illustrator in Woodmere, LI. She landed her first job — dressing moms and daughters — with the help of a little white lie:
"I was a salesgirl. The store was called Sherry's. I drew an amazing sketch in the dressing room, and all the mothers loved me to dress their kids. I was about 13 or 14," Karan told Mallis in 2012. "I lied about my age [to get the job]."
Jean schemes
Tommy Hilfiger in front of his first store in Elmira, NY (left), and today.Photo: Tommy Hilfiger personal archive; WireImage for Tommy Hilfiger
Tommy Hilfiger is well known for denim — and has been since the beginning. During his senior year of high school, the natural-born hustler, now 64, started a business "buying jeans and hippie clothes" and selling them in a makeshift basement store in his hometown of Elmira, NY:
"[We bought jeans] on the streets. We found vendors. My friend . . . had been to New York many times, and he led the way through the Village and he knew all of these cool shops," Hilfiger told Mallis in 2012. "We used to buy excess merchandise from a lot of the cool stores, pack the clothes into our Volkswagen and drive it upstate."
Lucky one
Before he was a judge on "Project Runway," Michael Kors (second from right) starred in a Lucky Charms commercial.Photo: WireImage
As anyone who's ever seen "Project Runway" knows, Michael Kors is far from camera-shy. In fact, the 55-year-old Merrick, LI-reared mogul launched a short-lived acting career at age 4 after being scouted at a party:
"[The producer] said, 'I think you'd be great on television.' And the next thing you knew, we were doing Lucky Charms [TV commercials] and all this crazy stuff. I thought it was great," Kors told Mallis in 2012. "I still have my SAG card. [My mother] retired me, though, at 6."
Rising stock
Marc Jacobs with a model from his Perry Ellis collection (left), and today.Photo: Thomas Iannaccone/Fairchild Archive; WireImage
Marc Jacobs, New York's homegrown enfant terrible, has always been fearless. At 15, the now-52-year-old designer snagged a stock-boy position at Upper West Side menswear boutique Charivari, where he introduced himself to iconic designer Perry Ellis — the man who catapulted his career:
"I ran up to Perry — I said, 'I'm really serious about being a fashion designer. You're my favorite American designer. Could you give me any suggestions?' " Jacobs told Mallis in 2013. "And he introduced me to [then-Ellis employees] Jed [Krascella] and Patricia [Pastor] and said, 'They both went to Parsons, and if you're serious, then that's where I'd suggest you go to get a good education.' And that's what I did."
Clothes encounters
Vera WangPhoto: Getty Images
Vera Wang is the darling of A-list wedding gown designers now, but the 65-year-old NYC native paid her dues as a 20-year-old salesgirl at a Madison Avenue shop, where she met her future boss, Vogue editor Frances Patiky Stein:
"When I was a salesgirl at Yves Saint Laurent, I was helping [Patiky Stein] buy clothing, and she said, 'You are really gifted — when you get out of college, call me and I'll give you a job at Vogue.' I knew what Vogue was, but I didn't understand what a fashion editor did," Wang told Mallis in 2013. "My mother said, 'Don't be ridiculous. She's not going to give you a job at Vogue.' And I got out of college and I called her up. I said, 'You may not remember me,' but she did, and I got the job."
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