Patrick Kelly : MAVERICK AND MASTERMIND
On Sunday, Patrick Kelly, the Paris-based fashion designer, will rise before dawn in his Beverly Hills Hotel suite in order to arrive at Pasadena’s Rose Bowl Flea Market just as dealers are unloading their wares.
“My friends ask: ‘How can you look at all that junk?’ ” says Kelly, who searches for black dolls, black memorabilia, cobalt blue glass and any item related to his friend Bette Davis.
“But it’s so cool, and you get a nice ride,” he explains in his vague, boyish way.
There’s not a chance that Kelly would ever bump into fellow designers Yves Saint Laurent or Karl Lagerfeld rummaging through merchandise at a flea market. But, of course, that at least partially explains why Kelly has quickly established himself as a certifiable fashion character.
Although he has literally joined the Establishment as the first American to be accepted into the venerable Chambre Syndicale, a federation of Paris designers (having been sponsored by Saint Laurent chairman Pierre Berge), Kelly, dressed in his uniform of Size 56 overalls and baseball cap, is as approachable as your next-door neighbor. And his designs--incorporating buttons made of real dice, stuffed teddy bears affixed to Lycra body dresses and saucy peplum suits decked out with his signature multicolored buttons--are as digestible as Campbell’s soup.
His prices, which average in the $500-to-$600 range, are a notch below other French ready-to-wear lines, and next year, he will spin off a secondary collection, Patrick Kelly Loves You, for half the price.
While in Los Angeles for an appearance today at Bullock’s Beverly Center (a visit Kelly orchestrated to coincide with the monthly flea market), the designer has his itinerary carefully mapped out. He’ll be playful Patrick when he hangs out at Pink’s, chowing chili dogs. But his flip side, the marketing master, will take a meeting with a producer about a film based on his life story--from Vicksburg, Miss., to the Louvre, where he unveils his seasonal collections.
Kelly somehow knows all the right moves. His fashion house was teetering on the edge in July, 1987, when the Warnaco Group, an American apparel conglomerate, came to the rescue. His wholesale volume is expected to reach more than $7 million this year.
Anyone who passes Kelly off as just another designer with a bag of tricks is missing the point. Frankly, kitschy touches, such as dice and stars, have a “much broader appeal than one would think,” says Mary Ann Wheaton, president of Patrick Kelly. “Women want clothes that scream ‘I’m new, I’m forward.’ ”
“With other designers you can get clothes that are chic and masculine or hard and way out,” Kelly says. “Mine are happy.”
