Fashion may be art, but does it belong in a museum?

NEW YORK — There is a torrent of color. A rainbow of hues. A virtual ode to pink. The most striking aspect of the Isaac Mizrahi exhibition, on view at the Jewish Museum through Aug. 7, is the fashion designer’s effusive embrace of orange, grass green, teal and, of course, pink. Before visitors get to the clothes, the sketches or the videos detailing Mizrahi’s success, which most will recall as a starring role in “Unzipped,” they are introduced to his nearly obsessive desire to collect every possible hue in the rainbow in bits of wool, silk and cotton. Examples of his fabric-swatch collection, which he neatly stores in slim boxes, are tacked to the walls of the exhibition’s opening gallery. The effect is akin to walking into a room-size kaleidoscope, and the inevitable response is emotional rather than intellectual. The color makes you smile.