In his fatherâs footsteps
Itâs hard to imagine a father and son who have shaped Los Angeles fashion as profoundly -- and as differently -- as Tommy Perse and his son James.
In the 1970s, the elder Perse introduced the black-clad look to Southern California, through his influential West Hollywood store Maxfield.
In the â80s, Tommy Perse was the first to bring the collections of Giorgio Armani, Yohji Yamamoto and Comme des Garcons to town. Today, the shelves of Maxfield are filled with bleeding-edge labels such as Rick Owens and Libertine. And the skull-loving retailer was mining that trend long before Ed Hardy forced it down the gangplank of passe.
A long-haired retail eccentric, Tommy Perse is known for his ring-festooned fingers, a penchant for all things black, and for conducting interviews in a Maxfield dressing room.
James Perse -- clean-cut, classically handsome and favoring jeans, T-shirts and slip-on Vans, is practically the polar opposite. His aesthetic is a laid-back beach luxe, exemplified by simple, solid and super-soft T-shirts that hug the body.
Itâs a look that defines many upscale Angelenos whoâve moved beyond the shredded, distressed, overwrought denim and tattoo-splattered tees of the last decade. And the appetite for his plain, unadorned $50 cotton jersey T-shirts and $195 French terry hoodies has fueled a Perse universe that now includes 11 stand-alone stores and product on shelves of boutiques (Scoop, American Rag) and department stores (Saks Fifth Avenue, Barneys New York). James Perse says his empire had $80 million in sales last year, double what it was just four years ago.
Anita Ortiz, national merchandise manager of contemporary clothing for Nordstrom, the first department store to pick up the fledgling line seven years ago, says the line continues to grow in popularity âbecause itâs a full lifestyle brand that represents a cool, casual L.A. lifestyle, that appeals to a customer beyond that base,â adding that the lineâs continual evolution is a key to its success. The single T-shirt has been joined by kids clothes, bed linens, bicycles, surfboards and furniture. Oh, and thereâs a Baja boutique hotel on the drawing board too.
Monocle magazine recently dubbed James Perseâs Beverly Hills boutique one of the worldâs top 20 retailers, and J.Crew Chief Executive Mickey Drexler is a fan. âIn our business you know whoâs good out there -- who âgets it,â â Drexler says. âHeâs one of the people in our industry who does good stuff. Itâs cool stuff, very modern, very connected. These arenât elitist goods. Thereâs broad appeal.â
Drexler is a fan of both generations. âIâve always admired enormously what his fatherâs done,â he adds. âI guess thereâs DNA there from the dad [to the son].â
Though it may not seem like it at first glance, there is a distinct lineage that becomes apparent after you study the new James Perse flagship store at the Malibu Lumber Yard shopping center, wedged between the Malibu Country Mart and Pacific Coast Highway. The exterior of the 3,015-square-foot boutique is angular and black, with an uncanny similarity to the minimalist Maxfield facade.
James Perse, who professes an unhealthy fascination with architecture, said it was envisioned as a beach house. Along the front, louvered wooden shutter doors in black swing open to reveal warm blond wood and floor-to-ceiling shelves stocked with his California-infused, understated clothing. A wooden deck attached to the store is filled with James Perse lounge chairs, and matte black and burnt orange-colored custom bicycles stand at attention in a rack near the front door.
Drexler, who knows a thing or two about retail environments himself, says Perse has a natural instinct, stocking his shelves with the kind of covet-worthy clothes you never know you want until you encounter them. âItâs something inside of him. You look at the stores and you immediately emotionally connect.â
Born in 1972, James Perse spent his early years bouncing around Los Angeles, Hancock Park and the Hollywood Hills.
âWhen I was growing up in the â80s, minimalist architecture was becoming very popular, and my dad was really into it, but it was museum-like and cold,â he remembers. âAt the same time I was growing up in sunny Southern California, going to the beach, calling our teachers by their first names -- a real casual lifestyle.
âAt my dadâs house you had to take your shoes off at the front doorstep. You didnât touch the walls. But when I lived with my mother -- they split when I was very young -- it was a different world. My momâs was comfortable, cozy and inviting. It was the total opposite.â
His fatherâs obsession with all things black was a constant theme. âNo matter what it was, heâd make it black -- even if it was red brick with white heâd turn it into black brick with white, which was kind of hideous,â says Perse. âNatural wood was never part of his vocabulary.â
His aesthetic, Perse says, is a direct result of melding these two disparate influences. The spare minimalist lines form the bones of his stores, the shape of his clothes and the framework of his furniture. The warmth and sunny vibe of the California beach life are echoed in plush poplins, jerseys and twills; dresses that can survive being balled up at the bottom of a tote bag all day and still drape the female form as chicly as if they came right off the rack; and practically diaphanous T-shirts and hoodies with graphic word clouds of hyper-local beach names. (And really, where else can Dan Blocker Beach get a T-shirt shout-out?)
After high school, Perse went to Denison University in Ohio (âfor like a minute,â he says). He soon returned to the West Coast and enrolled in Santa Monica College. But course work failed to hold his attention the way a certain side project did.
âI couldnât find a baseball cap I liked,â he explains. âI wasnât into the trucker shapes; the fabrics and logos that were on the market. I have a very specific idea of the way I want things to be, so I started developing one on my own.â
At 19, Perse started crafting his own caps. âI made a Maxfield hat and put a little hang-tag on it with the name JP Classics and my phone number,â he says. âThatâs when people shopping at my dadâs store started noticing it.â
One of his first coups was making hats for Martin Scorseseâs 50th birthday party (thanks to a connection through a friend at CAA), which led to the launch of a merchandising company. Perse recalls that early customers included the Hard Rock Hotel (âPeter Morton was my hardest sellâ) and Joel Silver (wrap gifts for his 1995 movie âFair Game).
Along the way, Perse noticed that, like the hats, there wasnât a T-shirt style that fit his aesthetic; the fabrics were too thick, the necklines too binding and the shapes were just a bit off for his taste. âAt the time you couldnât find anything that was just a little more simple, a little more fitted. So I started experimenting with T-shirts.â
In 1994, the James Perse brand launched with his luxurious take on the T-shirt, again starting on the shelves of Maxfield, spreading to boutiques around Los Angeles, then into Nordstrom and to the East Coast.
In 2003, James Perse opened his first boutique, literally in his fatherâs retail shadow -- across Melrose Avenue from Maxfieldâs temple of minimalist luxe. So itâs noteworthy that at some time in the next few months (store representatives wouldnât be more specific, and despite several attempts, Tommy Perse couldnât be reached to comment on his sonâs successes) the father is set to open the second Maxfield in the storeâs 40-year history just a crumpled T-shirtâs toss away from his sonâs new store in Malibu.
âI was part of making that happen,â Perse says. âI thought there would be a fun beach-chic interpretation of what he does.â Then he adds with a chuckle: âHopefully heâll make his son proud.â
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