Born to Be Brad (7 page)

Me in my grunge days.

“I’m sorry,” I said, still dancing. “I love this shirt. It sparkles!”

Oh, and it was all on television. Long before
The Rachel Zoe Project,
I was on
Electric Circus,
Canada’s Friday-night dance show, which aired on Citytv. I was a minor celebrity in my town because of it. My dad would make fun of the show, calling it “Electric Titties,” because there were always close-up shots of women’s breasts bouncing on camera. But we loved it. I wore a leopard-print pullover that I found at a vintage store and Victoria and I went to the TV studio, where we sometimes danced with a cartoonlike character dressed in a Winnie-the-Pooh backpack who went by the name Hot Girl. He looked like Tweedledee from
Alice in Wonderland,
missing Tweedledum. Victoria wore her hair in two buns at the top of her head like BjÖrk. We danced for hours, in these studied movements—we’d punch the air and flail our arms. We didn’t care about anything. There, we felt alive.

“This was just another instance in my life where I could see where the party was, but I couldn’t figure out how to get there.”

It was an absurd scene.
Electric Circus
was filmed in the same studio where the eleven o’clock news and the early morning shows were broadcast. We’d be dancing on the same platforms the morning news anchor would use to demonstrate the latest health food cooking trends. We were often on the second floor, only visible in wide shots, and the music was hard to hear. We just felt a bumping bass in the floor. Victoria would say to me, “Are they playing La Bouche?” I’d say, “I think it’s ‘Everything but the Girl.’” Sometimes the cameras did come upstairs, and the show’s host, Monika Deol, would interview some of the dancers live on air. One night, she was talking to my friend Matt up on a platform. He had blue hair. “Is this your first time here?” she asked him. Matt was mumbling, but he managed to get a few words out, telling the host that Victoria and I had brought him to
Electric Circus
and it was his first time. Monika pointed down at me dancing in the crowd. I was dressed in a sequined green oversize blouse and green velvet bell-bottoms. And I had a choker around my neck, made of sequined material left over from community theater shows.

“I want your shirt!” she yelled down to me—on Canadian television.

“I’m sorry,” I said, still dancing. “I love this shirt. It sparkles!”

Though Victoria and I were often in the crowd at
Electric Circus,
we were never the cool kids—even there. We used to hand out flyers for clubs. We weren’t paid to do this, we didn’t get a kickback on the admissions, but handing out those flyers made us feel like a part of something, which is all we wanted. It made us feel like we belonged. More than once, the producers of
Electric Circus
asked Victoria and me to dance in the window—behind a sheet. We’d be the dancing silhouettes, featured players except that you wouldn’t be able to see our faces, which was the whole point of being on television. We wanted to be seen! And we were furious. “We’re not coming back if we’re in the windows,” I shouted. This was just another instance in my life where I could see where the party was, but I couldn’t figure out how to get there. Of course, we came back the next week. And the week after that. We had to! Because we wanted to be invited to the big, annual
Electric Circus
dance party in Ottawa in the dead of winter. The producers always chose the coolest dancers to go. Try as we did, we were never invited.

Her Madgesty

WHAT YOU CAN LEARN FROM MADONNA

Some people forget—I don’t—but Madonna was the first female pop star to challenge people’s thinking on sex and sexuality. She pushed her audience to be brave and bold not just in their fashion choices but also in their lifestyle choices. And to be more accepting, which was so important for me growing up. It was a different era for celebrities, because they were so much less accessible. You had to wait for the TV interview or the magazine to come out to see what Madonna was up to. There was no stylist yet. You didn’t know what Madonna was going to do at the MTV Video Music Awards in advance. You had to tune in for the surprise and the drama. The night she performed “Vogue” with the Marie Antoinette costumes and powdered wigs—it was brilliant but so scandalous at the time. Her dancers were gay and overtly sexual. And there was this undercurrent of danger. She was pushing the boundaries, never more so than in the “Justify My Love” video, which I bought on VHS. I had to hide it from my parents, but it was worth it. Here were men kissing and transvestites and breasts. She was everything.

I’d started bringing some of Toronto back to Port Perry with me. One night, after a long weekend dancing in Toronto, I invited Lina Love to dinner. Lina Love (not her real name) was a go-go dancer I met at the clubs. The go-go dancers were like celebrities and my dream was to be one of them. They were glamorous in their own way, and Lina was no exception. She had fluorescent yellow hair and no eyebrows. She wore platform shoes and bell-bottoms and booty shorts and crazy knee-high socks and basically looked like an alien. She danced like an anime character, with these weird, robotic movements. I was obsessed with her. She was a real woman, but she looked like a drag queen.

How was dinner that night in Port Perry? Let me just tell you this: My grandparents met Lina Love. On the train back from Toronto, I was freaking out about what they’d say when I brought this Japanese robot to supper. But, I swear to God, my grandfather was so happy I brought a girl home—any girl!—that he welcomed Lina Love to come back anytime. I was so weirded out by the whole thing that I grabbed her hand and took her down to the basement to play dress-up. I wanted her to see these ladybug costumes my mom made for the community theater, which I thought would make excellent rave costumes.

If I was dressing more outlandishly now, it’s because I was trying to work out who I was. I was the same Brad Goreski who danced to Debbie Gibson. Only I’d gotten more creative. I dyed my hair purple. I wore Fun Fur pants to school in grade eleven. I used my mom’s sewing machine to make my own pants in weird fabrics. One pair was a cotton print of vacuum cleaners. (That is a fashion don’t, by the way.) The pants were basically two flour sacks with a drawstring waist, and I’d wear them with a T-shirt I bought at the Spin Doctors concert all under a peacoat with a fur collar from the Goodwill. I’d stand in garbage pails and have people take my photo. I was a difficult teenager, acting out in other ways. If I wanted the car, I took the car. My mom would tell me not to, and then she’d hear the sound of the garage door opening. She confronted me once—about the late nights out, about the partying. I was so angsty I shouted back, “I don’t fucking care what you think.” Of that time in my life, she would say I was out of reach. Years later I found out that she would sleep with the portable phone in her hand, which crushed me. But I didn’t blame her.

“I always thought of the fashion world as a fantasy, make-believe place. But thanks to
Unzipped,
I could see it, I could hear the paper dolls talk.”

My parents had stopped indulging me with clothing and told me I needed to get a job. For a brief time, I returned to the restaurant at my grandparents’ resort, selling ice cream to tourists for four Canadian dollars. But when a job opened up at the local video store I jumped at the chance. The video store was a lifeline to the outside world. And it’s where I discovered the documentary
Unzipped.
Doug Keeve is the filmmaker, and he spent a year following Isaac Mizrahi as the designer was preparing his spring 1994 collection. The movie goes way beyond fly-on-the-wall footage. You’re in a fitting with a young, brassy Naomi Campbell, who is complaining about having to take her belly button piercing out. She is gorgeous—just like the photo I had of her hanging on my wall, the one from
Harper’s Bazaar,
where Naomi has straight black hair and is dressed in a Jean Paul Gaultier saddle-harness skirt and bustier. Except here she’s talking! She’s real! Cindy Crawford, Linda Evangelista, Kate Moss, a brand-new Amber Valletta—they’re all there in this movie. It’s so chic. For his runway show, Mizrahi has this idea to put up a scrim, like at the ballet, so that the audience will be able to see the backstage area during the runway show, even while the models are changing. At first, the girls are freaking out. They’re standing behind the scrim saying, “Can you see me naked?” But you know they love it.

Net-à-Porter

LOAD UP YOUR NETFLIX QUEUE WITH THE TEN BEST MOVIES FOR FASHION INSPIRATION

Mahogany
(1975)

This is high seventies glamour at its best. Forget the story for a second, which is absurd: Diana Ross is a secretary who is discovered by a modeling agent and becomes a huge high-fashion model before she gets into a car accident. What
Mahogany
is really about: hair sculptures (!) and vintage posing. There is energy in Diana Ross’s fingertips.

Sixteen Candles
(1984)

Jake Ryan has been a fashion inspiration for my entire life; he made button-down shirts, khakis, and boat shoes sexy. And Molly Ringwald is the epitome of eighties approachable glamour.

Ocean’s Eleven
(2001)

This is the rare movie where the men’s clothing is stronger than the women’s. This is a lesson in tailoring and how to look slick without looking cheesy. It’s also Brad Pitt at his best.

American Gigolo
(1980)

How hot is Richard Gere in this movie? Every. Single. Outfit. This film is about male sexuality—it’s about denim shirts and jeans, and being sexy without showing any skin. Which is really what Richard Gere’s appeal was anyway. He was never the guy running around shirtless. He had swagger before anybody else did. Rent this film. Or just check out the Herb Ritts photo from this period of Richard Gere with his hands behind his head. Heaven.

Paris Is Burning
(1990)

This is a documentary about drag queens living in New York in the late eighties, competing in these downtown late-night balls, each one part of a house. The House of Labasia. The House of Chanel. This was the birth of voguing, which Madonna borrowed and turned into “Vogue.” Most of these people didn’t have any money. Their lives were a testament to the fact that you can use what you have around you to create something beautiful. We get lost in the idea that everything has to be Gucci, Balenciaga, Prada. But where style inspiration so often comes from is when people have to make it happen for themselves. There was such a sense of community in this film, and a passion for fashion.

La Dolce Vita
(1960)

Nothing beats a man in an Italian-made suit. Or a woman dancing in a fountain. End of story.

Clueless
(1995)

Pleated plaid miniskirts, oversize belts, platform shoes—this is a lesson in high nineties fashion. Plus, there’s a monster makeover in the middle of the movie, which makes it essential viewing.

Truth or Dare
(1991)

Where to begin? With the Gaultier costumes? Or with Madonna shopping at Chanel in Paris, where she calls down to the salesclerk and mocks her. She wore a Chanel necklace to give my favorite speech—when she lands in Rome and addresses her fans about the ban the Vatican has put on her show. She keeps screaming, “
Basta!
” at the crowd, but they won’t stay quiet.

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
(1964)

A young Catherine Deneuve in France, dressed in flats and shift dresses with bows in her hair—dainty, French, and proper, shot during the time she and Yves Saint Laurent became close. Oh, and it’s a musical!

The Talented Mr. Ripley
(1999)

This film had a huge impact on my personal style. But let’s focus on Gwyneth Paltrow. Whether she was dressed in a pressed white shirt and full skirt belted or an evening wear look with a black strapless gown and white gloves, a necklace, and earrings with her hair swept up, she was the personification of gorgeous.