HOUSE OF Z

“Fashion has a dark side. Not all runways and lipstick and fishtail gowns.” – Zac Posen

The documentary “House of Z” by Sandy Chronopoulos, is about the rise, fall, and comeback of the young and talented designer, Zac Posen. Zac Posen was raised in SoHo, New York in an artistic family. In his high school years, Zac began to design and make unique dresses on his good friends and muses, Paz de la Huerta, Stella Schnabel and Claire Danes.

He moved to London to go to Central St. Martins University where he designed a pink dress which brought him celebrity endorsement and caught an eye of the The New York Times`s reporter.

Zac Posen`s brand was built in a small apartment with the help of his mother and sister where he was doing his first collection fashion show for Henri Bendel`s - it was a success at the end. With doing his real first fashion show, people were impressed by the unique designs and structure of his dresses. He had a strong voice and he was speaking through his designs. He was also throwing unusual runway shows where his models were acting and spinning their dresses to show every inch of his collection.

He came to the world of fashion as an amazing and talented designer, with the creations that people have never seen before. He soon became known, and as he is still today, for his craftsmanship and textile manipulation.

He became famous really fast. He liked the attention and he wanted to be seen by showing up to events dressed like a lord, wearing capes and crowns, presenting himself like he was better than everyone else. People also started to think that he had some unfair advantages, some were saying that he got the fame too early and that he didn't earn it.

In 2008, the stock market crash, which led him to financial issues. Then he decided to move to Paris, where people didn't like his collections or him, calling him an arrogant “poseur.” At that time he didn't get along very well with his family, and his mother and sister left the company soon after.

Throughout the film he was talking about his success and failure, sharing his missteps which caused the `hate` towards him. While sharing that, he was showing his true self, his honest tears and smiles from which he comes across as a humbled mature man, who learned from his failures which made him stronger. We still get a happy ending in the film, Zac reunited with his family again and gets his creative inspiration back, which were the two main things that guided him toward success at the beginning.