All the Rage

The fashion industry and Hollywood have always been inextricably linked. Even downright enamored of each other.

For years, they’ve rubbed elbows, walked down the red carpet together at Oscar time and played in each other’s milieus, both on the big screen and on the runway.

Now, that relationship is getting even cozier.

World-renowned American fashion designers such as Isaac Mizrahi, Todd Oldham and Tommy Hilfiger have high-powered Hollywood talent agencies working on various movie deals. Mizrahi and Oldham, both in their mid-30s, have even relinquished the day-to-day responsibility of running their New York design firms for movie projects. Each also wants to direct.

Tom Ford, the 36-year-old designer who transformed the tired Gucci label into a hip line, is considering a second career in movies someday. Designer Carole Little was one of the producers of last year’s hit snake thriller “Anaconda.” Fashion mogul Sidney Kimmel of Jones New York has for years bankrolled movies, including “9 1/2 Weeks.”

Now, fashion and Hollywood are finding new ways to mingle.

Hilfiger recently signed a high-profile deal with Miramax’s Dimension Films label to feature stars of an upcoming movie in a $30-million jointly financed ad campaign.

Supermodel Veronica Webb has reportedly written a script for producers Lynda Obst and Howard Rosenman that Nicole Jefferson hopes to direct for 20th Century Fox’s Fox 2000 film unit.

French hip clothes company Agnes B announced at the Cannes International Film Festival the launch of Love Streams, a production company that will enlist French producer Haut et Court for its first film.

Even fashion giant Ralph Lauren is discussing an entertainment project with his movie producer pal Joel Silver.

“What’s going on here?” asks a mystified young Hollywood screenwriter who’s still waiting for her first movie to be made. “I want a fall runway show!”

What makes fashion designers think they can write or direct movies that would have the same kind of universal appeal and distinction their labels have?

Their agents and some Hollywood executives are convinced trend-setting designers such as Mizrahi and Oldham can bring to movies the same kind of artistic, visual and stylish innovations that made them successful in fashion.

“These are people who get paid to pay attention to pop culture,” said a top talent agent, who argues that producing a fashion show is similar to putting together a movie.

“They’re used to producing shows, managing big budgets and dealing with bankers and big advertisers,” the agent said.

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Fashion and Hollywood don’t always mix. Robert Altman’s overhyped 1994 sendup of the design industry, “Ready to Wear,” was largely panned by critics and flopped at the box office, and supermodel Cindy Crawford’s ballyhooed 1995 acting debut, “Fair Game,” had a similar fate.

It’s totally understandable why fashion mavens are drawn to Hollywood. Both industries are sexy, high-octane, glamorous, theatrical and creative. Both also are narcissistic and cutthroat.

“Emotionally and artistically, it appeals,” Mizrahi said. “And, you’re able to create intellectually.” For him, the historical cache of the movie business is also alluring: “It’s the only history that America has. France has the Louvre, Italy has the Vatican, and America has Hollywood.”

The 36-year-old designer, who made his first major appearance in Douglas Keeve’s acclaimed 1995 fashion documentary “Unzipped,” is the most visibly aggressive.

He has signed a deal with DreamWorks SKG to produce with his partner, Nina Santisi, a live-action movie and potential animated TV series based on his three-part satirical comic book series, “The Adventures of Sandee the Supermodel.” Written by Mizrahi and illustrated by William Frawley, the comics follow the exploits of a statuesque blond beauty queen discovered in a New York coffee shop by a character named Yvesaac--a thinly disguised version of Mizrahi.

Mizrahi is also writing and planning to star in a movie for “Men in Black” director Barry Sonnenfeld and partner Barry Josephson, who have a new company at Walt Disney. The film, “Wild About Harry,” is a screwball musical comedy about a neurotic gay creative director at a New York ad agency pursuing love and a family life.

“Isaac has a natural ability to act, and his script is unbelievably funny,” said Sonnenfeld, who cast Mizrahi in a small role as a high-strung fashion designer in the 1994 comedy “For Love or Money,” starring Michael J. Fox.

Sonnenfeld said artistic people like Mizrahi and Oldham, who also worked on the Fox movie as a costume designer, “understand as we do about glamour, show biz and creating an event--and they both have developed a very specific style and tone.”

The Brooklyn-born son of a children’s wear manufacturer, Mizrahi has harbored a longtime interest in movies. “It was always there--and it rules me.”

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Mizrahi added: “I was born thinking they [fashion and movies] were the same--it’s always been a complete blur of the two. As a clothes designer, you create a world. As a filmmaker, you create a world.”

Mizrahi studied acting at New York’s famed High School of Performing Arts. Other bit parts he’s played include a cameo as an artist in Woody Allen’s upcoming fall movie and a part in Alan Parker’s 1980 musical “Fame.” Last year, he read for the gay neighbor role in Jim Brooks’ “As Good as It Gets,” a part that ultimately earned an Oscar nomination for Greg Kinnear.

“This role will be incredible,” the designer said of the autobiographical part he will play in “Wild About Harry,” explaining, “it’s about a character who discovers that it’s great to be complex and that sometimes craziness is a virtue.”

Mizrahi describes himself as a “manic overachiever” and admits being “very aggressively defiant.” In first grade, he says, he punctured the tires of a school bus with an ice pick, “because I didn’t want to go to school.”

After designing clothes for the last 11 years, Mizrahi made his push into the movies.

Asked how he finds time to juggle it all, the designer said: “I don’t sleep much. . . . I write from midnight to 4, and sometimes on Monday mornings I find I can’t make it to work because I want to finish a sequence.” Creative ideas, he said, “come very easily and just niggle, niggle and niggle until I just sit down and write.”

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Mizrahi also wants to direct the next script he plans to write about “a famous, powerful woman who is so at odds in her relationships with men.” While Mizrahi is certainly bent on becoming more of a household name in Hollywood, he said he loathes movie premieres and big Hollywood parties, found the Cannes International Film Festival “terrifying” the two times he went and is surprised how much he likes his agents. “I’m supposed to hate them, aren’t I?”

Oldham, who associates describe as a much more low-key personality than Mizrahi (Oldham’s “shy, soft-spoken and very un-Hollywood,” says one), also has quietly been making himself more visible around Hollywood.

He said he hopes to direct his first movie sometime next spring. For six months, he has been meeting with major studio executives at companies such as Warner Bros., New Line, Sony Pictures and Disney. He’s represented by Creative Artists Agency, as is Mizrahi.

Along with reading “lots of scripts,” Oldham said he’s developing a movie based on an autobiographical book he optioned by Liz Renay, the onetime girlfriend of mobster Mickey Cohen, titled “My Face for the World to See.” Written in prison, it’s about Renay’s life from the 1950s through the ‘70s. Oldham says it’s “a great comedy” about “empowerment.”

Born in Corpus Christi, Texas, the son of a computer programmer, Oldham said, “I’ve always had a great interest in film, and since I was a little boy I knew I wanted to do it.” His favorite movies growing up included “The Parent Trap” and “The Sound of Music,” and he said he was particularly struck by the late John Cassavetes’ 1974 drama “A Woman Under the Influence,” which he saw when he was 10.

“I had never seen a movie with that intensity,” Oldham said. As for his favorite new releases, Oldham admits he’s probably the “only one who missed seeing ‘Titanic’ ” and finds himself attracted to dark comedies and irreverent material by such edgy filmmakers as Gus Van Sant and Tim Robbins.

Oldham spent the last two years rearranging his professional life so he can spend more time on creative endeavors outside designing.

Oldham began his career as a costume designer and created a promotional line of clothing and accessories for Warner Bros.’ 1995 movie “Batman Forever.” He has also directed music videos and segments of his irreverent “Todd Time” spot on MTV’s “House of Style.”

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When asked about his impressions of Hollywood, Oldham said: “I’m used to a lot of different people with vivid personalities, so it doesn’t strike me as anything unusual. Nothing I haven’t seen before.” He said he views making movies much in the same way he does designing clothes: “I appreciate the art. My creativity is intact no matter what medium. It’s just a matter of expressing myself.”

One designer who manages to operate in both worlds today is Carole Little, who, along with her partner and ex-husband, Leonard Rabinowitz, has a movie company that produced last year’s surprise hit “Anaconda,” which grossed more than $100 million at the box office.

A film buff who grew up in Malibu, Little is involved in all creative aspects of her movie company, St. Tropez Films (formerly CinemaLine), despite introducing 12 lines a year in six different divisions of her clothes company.

Although she said she spent time on the set of “Anaconda,” she missed going to the jungle because of a New York show.

“Fashion still comes first, but I love both businesses,” said Little. “They’re both totally crazy and so are all the people in them.”

She added that although “both worlds are very consuming, fashion you have more control over, because you do a collection, show it and hope they come. It is what it is. In film, you do something, but there are a lot more variables.”

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Designs on Hollywood

A sampling of some of the high-powered fashion designers who are turning their attention to Hollywood:

Isaac Mizrahi

Star of 1995’s critically acclaimed documentary “Unzipped.” Signed a deal with DreamWorks SKG to produce a live-action movie and possible animated TV series based on his comic book series “The Adventures of Sandee the Supermodel.”

Todd Oldham

Hopes to be behind the camera directing his first movie by next spring. He’s developing an autobiographical book by Liz Renay, the former girlfriend of mobster Mickey Cohen.

Tom Ford

The man who’s made his reputation reviving Gucci into an ultrahip label around the world wants to someday direct movies.

Tommy Hilfiger

Recently signed a deal with Dimension Films to jointly finance a $30-million ad campaign that will feature stars of an upcoming movie.

Carole Little

The Los Angeles-based designer was a producer of last year’s surprise hit “Anaconda.”

Sidney Kimmel

Jones New York mogul bankrolled such films as “Blame It on Rio,” “9 { Weeks” and “Clan of the Cave Bear.”

Agnes B

French clothes designer is launching her own production company, Love Streams.