Fashion Designer Isaac Mizrahi burst on the scene in 1987 and he's never really left. He's a frequent guest on television shows like Project Runway, and has his own show Isaac Mizrahi Live on QVC. His career will soon be the subject of a months-long museum exhibit. Just don't call it a retrospective.

Long before Isaac Mizrahi designed beautiful clothing, he always had a sense of style.

"They made me this suit, which was powder blue, wool and polyester shantung, white patent leather Pierre Cardin loafers with the big PC buckles. That’s what I wore to my bar mitzvah."

We've seen Isaac Mizrahi's work on the runway, on Broadway and on celebrities, like first lady Michelle Obama.

"It was a total surprise," Mizrahi said. "I was out to dinner with my friends and someone said oh my God quick, put on the TV."

Mizrahi is credited with bridging the gap between high fashion and the clothes worn by the rest of us.

He designed a popular line for Target starting in 2003.

"I don’t like designer clothes," he said. "I don’t like fancy food. I don’t like polite society. I really don’t. And I’m embarrassed that people think I do.

"There is that funny thing in our culture that thinks if you pay more for something it’s automatically better. There is this funny thing in our culture that thinks if someone really temperamental presents them with a plate of food its better than going to Katz’s deli and getting a pastrami sandwich. It’s not always true."

NY1's Budd Mishkin spoke to Mizrahi as he was preparing for an exhibition at The Jewish Museum entitled Isaac Mizrahi: An Unruly History.

"I'm actually sketching this coat that I'm making for the show."

Mizrahi is 54, with plenty of career ahead of him.

When the museum first proposed the idea, he wasn't buying.

"I couldn't believe it," he said. "You know when see someone across the room and they wave and you go 'Me?' Like, It felt like that. 'Are you talking to me?'"

"I insisted that it be called a survey as opposed to a retrospective. I feel like a retrospective — it’s too soon for a retrospective, right?

Mishkin: Because there is an implication that…

"That I’m old or dead."

 Mishkin: And done in terms of work?

"Also, yes. Old. Dead. Done."

Isaac Mizrahi: An Unruly History showcases all of the designer's talents, including his fine sketch work.

But the process, from the page to the runway, can be imprecise.

"No piece of yarn that big is the same as the other piece of yarn that big," Mizrahi said. "No piece of yarn this big is like the same as that. I'm serious. And that's what God created to drive designers mad."

Mizrahi has always been known for following his own muse, even when — or perhaps especially when — he's being told he's making a mistake.

"I remember in meetings with store executives going, 'Darling, where are all the parkas? You gave us all these parkas and now they’re finally selling and we wanna sell your parkas.'

And I’m going, 'I'm through with parkas. I’m finished. Let someone else do those now. I have more interesting things to get into.'"

The intrigue of Mizrahi's career is that it has hardly followed a straight line.

In 1995, Mizrahi was the subject of the documentary Unzipped, highlighted by his unorthodox decision to dress his models during a Fashion Week show behind a see through scrim.

"I guess they had these kind of funny reactions to it but I had no question that they would absolutely adore it once they were in the situation," Mizrahi said. "It was only Douglas Keeve and Nina Santisi who produced the movie with me who said maybe you should tell the girls that they are gonna be undressed in front of everybody."

In 1998, Mizrahi's longtime financial backer Chanel pulled out, forcing Mizrahi to close his company.

"People, the ones sort of leaving messages saying, 'Oh God, are you alright?' I thought I can never speak to that person again because they see it that way.

"And then the other people going, like, 'Hooray for you.' Those were the people that actually got what the hell I was about and where I was going."

Mizrahi saw it as an opportunity to realize another dream — a one man off Broadway show, part singing, part spoken entitled Les Mizrahi.

 The show was quite personal. It was confessional, really. One New York Times story about the show even asked, 'is Isaac OK?'

Mizrahi says the show wasn't meant to be polished.

"I remember working with several different directors on that show," Mizrahi said. "And one of them was, like, no, no, no. 'Here’s how you land a tell.'

"And I was, like, you’re telling me how to land a joke? I know how to land a joke. If that’s all I wanted to do was land a joke, I would be landing jokes."

Isaac Mizrahi grew up in Brooklyn.

From kindergarten to eighth grade, he attended a Jewish day school, the Yeshiva of Flatbush.

"It was bad, it was really bad there," he said. "And I had this incredible teacher, Sheila Kanowitz in eighth grade, who went maybe not Yeshiva, maybe not, and she steered me to performing arts high school."

"It was an hour on subway. The 70s, the subways, it was a different world. Times Square was not a pretty place. Not at all. And the idea that my parents actually said fine he can go to Times Square every day at 13 basically when you go to high school. It’s shocking to me."

Mizrahi started making costumes for shows at Performing Arts, and eventually found his niche studying at the Parsons School of Design.

He graduated from Parsons in 1983, began working for Perry Ellis and it wasn't long before he started garnering attention.

"I remember when I first became a designer and there was a cover story in New York magazine. One of the things mentioned in the article was that I was gay and I remember this one older friend of mine said 'I'm so sorry they outed you.' And I said, they did, I thought they did a long time ago."

His first show in 1987 created a lot of buzz. His passion for his work has never really ebbed.

Mizrahi says the one sacrifice was not having kids.

"I could never guarantee that I would be good with the kid that would be born to me or the kid I would adopt, I could never guarantee it so I never did it. I was too scared to do it. Because I tend to be very focused on my work."

Mizrahi is now taking a brief step back to assess thirty plus years of work during his show at The Jewish Museum.

"This is really good, this is going to be good," he said.

In the process, he says one feeling has surprised him.

"I was able to actually see it as an accomplishment, which when you take it incrementally you never do," he said. "You don’t look at things at accomplishments. I don’t.

"You just think of it as a day’s work and move on. Really what was surprising about it was the entire body of it. Like 'Wow, that really meant something.''"