Maddman: The Steve Madden Story Offers a Glimpse Into One Man’s American Dream

At the iPic Fulton Market theater last night, a documentary titled Maddman premiered. Doors opened to a dimly lit, unceremonious red carpet and a room filled with promotional posters featuring gritty artwork, block letters, and a rough figuration of a man in a windbreaker with a baseball cap shielding his face—not exactly what you might expect for a fashion-world affair. But then that’s perhaps representative of its subject, in a nutshell: Steve Madden, or “Maddman,” the shoe designer often credited with democratizing trend-based fashion and who for the most part has remained a mystery to his many customers over the years.