Once upon a time, Fern Mallis had one of the most exciting jobs in the fashion industry. The creator of New York Fashion Week, she served as the senior vice president at IMG Fashion and executive director of the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA). But eventually, after 20 years, she realized it was time to move on and begin her next chapter.
She soon began hosting a conversation series called Fashion Icons with Fern Mallis at the 92^ndStreet Y, interviewing industry heavyweights like Norma Kamali, Calvin Klein, Tom Ford, and Donna Karan. It was such a success that her engaging chats were made into two books: Fashion Lives in 2015 and the just-released Fashion Icons 2: Fashion Lives with Fern Mallis (Rizzoli), which she wrote over the pandemic.

“It became a perfect time to work on it because in reflecting on many of the stories of the people in this book, they were more relevant than ever because so many of them are about reinventing their lives and how to triumph from failure, start over again, and become successful,” says Mallis, who now has her own consultancy.

Fashion Icons: Fashion Lives with Fern Mallis

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Open the pages of Fashion Icons 2 and it’s like you’ve scored access to the lives and pivoting prowess of fashion’s finest. There’s Tim Gunn, who once described himself as a terrible student. He vacillated between interests, majors, and even schools. “Having that background, he became one of the most impactful academic deans at Parsons and reinvented the fashion program there,” says Mallis. This is all before he became a household name starring on Project Runway.

Tim Gunn, Heidi Klum, Michael Kors, Nina Garcia, and Fern Mallis at the Project Runway Finalists…