Isaac Mizrahi mixes high and low fashion with his 'Unruly History'

Isaac Mizrahi isn't a fan of "looking back wistfully," but nostalgia isn't what's at play with the retrospective of his designs on view at The Jewish Museum in New York City.  He calls it a research project.

The exhibit, Isaac Mizrahi: An Unruly History, started out as a timeline, but once Mizrahi got over the "emotional hump" of sorting through the past, he was left with the discipline and research behind his designs. Colour, humour, and culture are just a few of the ways Mizrahi reminisces through subject instead of personal history.

In conversation with guest host Gill Deacon, Mizrahi talks about creating a signature as a designer as well as his success across the fashion spectrum.  He's designed clothes both for the runway and for retail giant Target, and as he puts it, "quality is not about money."

"A T-shirt is just as good as a ball gown, if it's the right T-shirt and the right ball gown," Mizrahi tells Gill, "there are mostly bad ball gowns just the same way there are mostly bad T-shirts."