The New York Post is offering up some dish on QVC’s new in-house designer, Isaac Mizrahi. And it doesn’t match the folksy, likeable persona that he shows viewers on QVC.
The dirt comes in the Post’s story Wednesday about William McComb, the relatively new CEO of Liz Claiborne, Mizrahi’s primary roost before his switch to soup-to-nuts, housewares-to-clothing, designer for QVC. McComb has had his hands full at Liz Claiborne, with the founders of its pricey Juicy Couture line storming out a month ago.
The Post says the Juicy Couture folk were irked that profits from their company were being used to pay for Mizrahi to rejuvenate the Liz Claiborne line. The Juicy girls were also miffed that their brand’s financial success was essentially footing the bill for Claiborne to bring “Project Runway” star Tim Gunn on board as its chief creative officer, whatever that title means.
Then the Post nails Mizrahi. It says that the curly-topped designer was a big “headache” to McComb, “delivering a giant flop with an overly trendy relaunch of Liz Claiborne last spring.”
The Post also claims that Mizrahi was none too happy about Gunn’s appearance on the scene, “complaining that Gunn was getting too much attention touring shopping malls and shilling for the label.”
So Liz Claiborne put the kibosh on Gunn’s appearances, according to the Post. But despite his alleged griping about Gunn, Mizrahi himself didn’t want to go out and do the Claiborne dog-and-pony shows for the unwashed masses at the nation’s new town squares, malls.
“It was like pulling teeth” to get Mizrahi to do public appearances for Claiborne, a source told the Post.
So which is it? Is Isaac just a down-to-earth, touchy-feely, likable and talented guy from Brooklyn, a prima donna that is a pain in the butt to work with, or both?
We’ll be like Fox News Channel (perish the thought, we’d rather burn in hell), and let you decide.
Homeshoppingista's Blog By Linda Moss 