Fashion 88 : Minimalism Carried to Max in Elite Shop
She races from garment to garment, touching each and singing its praises in a bubbly, ecstatic voice. He follows behind, throwing in more superlatives and straightening anything she leaves a millimeter or two askew. They are like two kids in a candy store--with one exception: They own it.
Tommy Perse and wife Anne-Marie, an American-French twosome with expensive tastes and zesty personalities, are the driven spirits behind Maxfield--the concrete bunker at the quiet end of Melrose Avenue that ranks as one of the world’s most fascinating stores.
Within the gallery-like structure designed for privacy from the outside world are directional, cutting-edge life style concepts from an elite corps of international designers of more than clothes.
Anything that stands or hangs in the 7,000-square-foot gallery is either avant-garde or classic with a twist. Nothing deviates from the Maxfield philosophy: practical, minimalist and usually black. (Whatever Perse wants and can’t find in black, he has made to order. In the past, that’s included bicycles, combs, hair dryers, hangers and linens.)
Detractors find the environment so cold it’s freezing, so elitest and snobby it’s offensive. Even the slanted-cube display window (the building’s only visible glass) can offend. For the store’s opening, it contained the work of Yohji Yamamoto along with “molded plastic urinals,” according to Simon Doonan, ( now creative director of Barneys New York, who decorated the Maxfield windows for eight years. Another time “there were stuffed cats flying around. That got a lot of phone calls,” he recalls happily.
Proponents revel in the serious fashion, the silence, the plaster walls, the built-in steel racks where the dark clothing hangs, the carefully displayed objets (sterling silver martini glasses, a procelain-and-stainless tea service, a glass chair). To them, the ambiance is soothing, comfortable, inspiring.
Maxfield’s Rolls-Royce reputation has made it a fashion pit stop for the city’s hip movers and shakers. One observer spotted Elton John, Jacqueline Bisset, “Top Gun” actor James Tolkan and Mary Travers of Peter, Paul and Mary, on the premises in a single hour. Other celebrity sightings have included Jack Nicholson, Rob Lowe, Gregory Hines and Quincy Jones. But remaining true to the Maxfield mystique, Perse refuses to name his celebrity customers.
By his own admission, he is demanding with the designers whose clothes he buys: “I’m slow, I think it out. They all tease me.” He and Anne-Marie will ask for changes, such as different buttons, additional fabrics, some additional pieces. “A good percentage of the time we get what we want,” says Perse.
Not many would turn him down. He is an internationally recognized fashion pioneer, one of the first retailers in America to carry Italian superstar Giorgio Armani and Japanese innovators Comme des Garcons, Matsuda and Yohji Yamamoto.
To Gabriella Forte, executive vice president of Armani, Perse “is a great retailer. You walk in the store, you look at the furniture, the clothes, the eyeglasses, the gadgets and Tommy. It’s all one thing, one point of view.”
Maxfield, she maintains “is not all things to all people. Tommy buys for himself, like the TV that goes up and down (via a remote-control stand). He’s like a little child playing with his toys. But he transmits his enthusiasm. He’s not just selling that TV, he’s having fun.”
When he’s buying in the Armani showroom in Milan, the mood is different: “You can be there three days with them while they decide,” sighs Forte. “Tommy takes his time and he’s always very jealous of what he chooses. If he picks a jacket, that means it’s the best one.”
“Tommy is a man in love with what he does,” observes costume designer Susan Becker, who included clothes from Maxfield when she wardrobed Whoopi Goldberg for “Jumping Jack Flash” and Diane Keaton for “Baby Boom.”
“I think that’s the secret, he’s almost obsessed. He likes perfection, but he likes style too,” she says.
Writer and producer Linda Balahoutis, a Maxfield customer since 1971, recalls, “It was quite different then. It was quaint and quirky, now it’s sophisticated and a little unconventional. It moves with the city, which is why it has survived.”
The typical Maxfield customer is “like the store itself. No taboos, anything goes. You can walk out looking like Madonna or Katharine Hepburn.”
Stephen Shapiro, executive vice president of Stan Herman realtors and a 12-year Maxfield patron, admits anyone unaccustomed to the multidigit price tags (Matsuda rayon shirt, $310; Commes des Garcons suit,$1,230; Jean Paul Gaultier high-waisted pants, $575) “could get sticker shock.”
Shapiro’s typical Maxfield shopping spree is quick and by appointment. “There’s very little time wasted. A salesperson gets to know what you like and sorts through everything before you get there. It’s like going to a restaurant and having the chef bring you the speciality of the house.”
Tommy and Anne-Marie (a former Dior model) spend seven months every year scouring the globe for treasures to bring back to their shop, to their Paris apartment and to their Hollywood Hills home.
The house echoes the store. “Tommy is a minimalist,” explains Anne-Marie. “We have no art on the walls. And no comfortable furniture, because we like Art Deco. Tommy has a mania for lamps, so we have lots of lamps.”
Her entertaining is also on the eccentric side: “One time it can be all black: black tablecloth, black dishes. Once, in Paris, all the food was yellow. Sometimes, it can be no meat, just four souffles.”
“I think people leave hungry,” Tommy comments. “We serve small portions.”
Perse--his wet-look curly hair neatly in place, his dark eyes hidden by small, fashionable sunglasses--once traveled in different circles. He grew up in New York (“although I’m not sure I ever grew up”), went to the University of Arizona and “had no direction.”
More surprisingly, he says: “I always had a hard time knowing what to wear. Once, when the fad was tight, hop sacking pants with sneakers and no socks, I was lucky. The pants came in 14 colors, so while the trend lasted I didn’t have to know what was good or bad.”
His fashion acumen wasn’t much better when he opened a Santa Monica Boulevard store, in 1969 after working briefly for the Great Linoleum Clothing Experience next door: “My idea was to buy things back East. I had no concept of seasons, so I would have scratchy tweed pants for summer.”
In the beginning he barely survived, “but a lot of people complimented the shop’s image. It definitely had a point of view. After a few years, I learned more about fashion, about business, I began to improve.”
The next milestone came when he “discovered Kork-Ease” and sold so many pairs of the cork-soled sandals, “it gave me money to travel to Europe.”
He had named his store after artist Maxfield Parrish and added Bleu (a favorite Parrish color), “because there was another Maxfield in town--plumbing supplies.”
The supplier went out of business and the color was dropped. “Blue wasn’t the image of the shop,” says Perse, “everything was becoming black and white.”
Maxfield officially opens each morning at 11, but at 9:30 a.m., the staff is there “to huddle on the previous day’s activities,” says sales manager Janet Gaertner. After they’ve discussed the new merchandise, they go to their books and call customers.
Gaertner denies Maxfield is for the rich only. “That’s the first layer, people who have unlimited dollars to spend on their wardrobes. But there are several grades. Some people spend $200. After that, maybe they will double and triple the amount. Others come in and buy items, like a $45 knit-and-rubber shoe. Yes, we’re here for the elite, but it’s a place for anybody with fine taste.”
Fine taste with no second thoughts. There are refunds, only a store credit within seven days. “We try not to sell if the customer expresses any qualms,” notes Gaertner.
A number of high-end retailers believe it’s hard to make money on Maxfield-type merchandise because it draws a very small clientele. But Perse claims sales are up 30% over last year.
“This is a dangerously quiet place,” he notes, his eye fixed on a salesperson, a customer and a $1,500 belt. “You think nothing is going on, but the best stuff is happening in the dressing rooms. The people who come here, come to buy. It’s like going into a pastry shop. You don’t go in just to look around.”
