Artist Info
Perry Ellis
American sportswear designer Perry Ellis's fall/winter 1978 collection established him as a fresh force on the New York fashion scene. He hired the captain of the Princeton University football team to charge down the runway, followed by cheerleaders and then by models who pranced and twirled down the catwalk. The clothes were classic American sportswear but in proportions and fabrics unlike anything the New York fashion press and buyers had ever seen. A high-waisted, front flap sailor pant was paired with a fitted, double-breasted, cropped jacket with long full sleeves; woolen skirts cut in full circles to the ankle were teamed up with oversized bulky knit sweaters; and a man's coat was cut to mid-calf and designed with oversized shoulders. The result was sophisticated, youthful, and casual. From that first collection until his death in 1986, Ellis received eight Coty awards and built a business that generated 260 million dollars in sales.
Born in Portsmouth, Virginia, Perry Ellis was an only child who grew up in a comfortable upper-middle-class home. He earned his undergraduate degree from the College of William and Mary and a master's degree in Retail Merchandising from New York University. After college Ellis went to work as a sportswear buyer for the department store Millar & Rhoads in Richmond, Virginia. He returned to New York to work for designer John Meyer of Norwich and later for print and scarf designer Vera Neumann.
Not unlike his runway shows, Perry Ellis's designs were fun, jaunty, and full of wit and irreverence, but never garish. Using his own daily uniform—a white T-shirt, white or blue button-down Oxford shirt, khaki trousers, white socks, and topsiders—as a starting point, his designs were always rooted in classic American sportswear. Incorporating the vocabularies of preppy, collegiate or Ivy styles, Ellis would experiment with the proportions of his clothes for both his women’s and menswear lines. However, it was Ellis's love for fabrics that created and drove his design vocabulary. He preferred thick wool tweeds, heavy silks, fine linens, and cashmeres, often from the best mills in Italy and England, and designed in collaboration with Ellis's team. By the early 1980s, his ubiquitous handknit sweater with a single cable had become a trademark style. It appeared in every collection, made from nubby Irish Donegal wool, raw silk, or linen yarns. Moreover, like his designs, his fabric choices were often used for both his women’s and men’s collections.
Caught in the early days of the AIDS epidemic, Perry Ellis died on May 30, 1986, at the age of 46, but his design legacy continues today.
