PLENTY TO TALK ABOUT: Before this year officially folds, Fern Mallis will sit down with one of her nearest and dearest at the 92nd Street Y.
Stan Herman will be the guest of honor on Dec. 12, and the pair will have plenty to talk about. At age 95, Herman is still a working designer, routinely appearing on QVC to sell his label and designing uniforms for FedEx and JetBlue. Activism has also underlined his career, which stretches 60-plus years. Herman and Mallis have a long history both personally and professionally, having previously worked together at the Council of Fashion Designers of America.
Herman’s just-released memoir “Uncross Your Legs: A Life in Fashion” will provide plenty to discuss. Along with unearthing Herman’s most memorable moments, Mallis is keen to learn why he wanted to write the book, what he wanted everyone to know about his life and his work and whether he “was settling any scores?” She also wants to know if there are still some stories that he held back and if so, why.
Their long friendship should lead to a certain amount of candor. Mallis described his Rizzoli-published book as “very honest and quite explicit about his sexuality.” She continued, “I want him to talk a little about that.”
As for her own favorite moments with Herman, Mallis said those would be hard to pick “as we [have] shared so many years, tears and events. But ultimately, I think cooking with him at his house on Big Fresh Pond [in Southampton, N.Y.] have been as memorable as sitting together at so many fashion shows in the tents, and also being together at the White House in the private quarters with then-First Lady Hillary Clinton to launch Fashion Targets Breast Cancer [in 1994].”
Mallis will kick off 2024 with another “Fashion Icons” talk with Hal Rubenstein on Jan. 22 at the 92NY. He also has a new book to discuss, “Dressing the Part: Television’s Most Stylish Shows.” Rubenstein’s book draws back the curtain on the roles that stylists play and how standout ones like “Sex and the City” stylist Patricia Field have shaped pop culture.
Hal Rubenstein
John Aquino
Like Herman, Rubenstein and Mallis go way back and have been friends for more years than Mallis said she can remember. Having always admired him and his “honest, take-no-prisoners opinions on everything,” Mallis said she is looking forward “to hearing his thoughts on how TV ladies have influenced fashion.”