Isaac Mizrahi

Renowned as much for his outré, larger-than-life personality as his iconoclastic, ever-shifting clothing lines, designer Isaac Mizrahi achieved success both behind the catwalk and in front of the camera. After bursting onto the New York fashion scene in the late-1980s, Mizrahi's nascent design company was subsidized by French fashion powerhouse Chanel for six years. During this time, he increased his profile with acclaimed work as the costume designer for the musical special "Liza Minnelli: Live from Radio City Music Hall" (PBS, 1992), as the focus of the lauded documentary "Unzipped" (1995), and with an occasional acting job, as in Woody Allen's "Celebrity" (1998). A talk show of his own, "The Isaac Mizrahi Show" (Oxygen, 2001-03), a hugely successful clothing line for Target, correspondent work at red carpet events for E! Networks and serving as a judge on the design-competition series "The Fashion Show" (Bravo, 2009- ) kept him busy and in the limelight. As much a personality as a creator, Mizrahi had long since become a brand unto himself, as salable as any clothing line he could ever design.