A Fashion Show for the Big 3-0
Not your ordinary man of style, James Perse, creator of sexy T-shirts, turns 30 today but celebrated the milestone early with a Thursday night party that was part birthday bash, part fashion promo.
The precocious son of Maxfield boutique founder Tommy Perse covered the lawn of his sleek, one-bedroom, glass-walled bachelor pad in the Hollywood Hills with white tiles and cream carpet, and put Beverly Hills chef Mako Tanaka on display in the sleek kitchen, where he turned out crab claws, pot stickers and other delectables too small to see in the darkness of the poolside party.
Like a lot of events these days, it was tough to sort out the pretty-young-things in hip-huggers from the I’m-sort-of-famous-things in hip-huggers. Yet some notables turned out--model Tatiana Patitz, designers Henry Duarte and Andrew Dibben and actor Matthew Perry. And some even dropped off Hermes shopping bags full of gifts for the birthday boy.
Ever the master of detail, Perse personally staged dioramas in four rooms of his immaculate house, where expansive glass walls functioned as store windows where guests could look but not touch.
Scene 1: A pair of kid-size mannequins, wearing his forthcoming Baby James children’s line, surround a big birthday cake.
Scene 2: A male and female mannequin wearing his signature Ts, hoodies and knit pants lounge in the ultramodern living room.
The finale: Lettered onto the window is the caption: “Homage to TP.” An alabaster female mannequin stands under the running shower, her white T-shirt wet and clingy. Her male companion sits on the john, his Perse boxers at his ankles and JP monogrammed toilet paper hanging off the roll.
“TP” stands not just for toilet paper, but Tommy Perse, the dad who helped launch his kid in business a decade ago. In addition to the new infant and children’s collections, the younger Perse is adding hats, which were his first foray into fashion.
“The minimum order was 100, and my dad was the only one who would buy them from me. He started selling them to the producers and celebrities who came into the store,” he recounted.
Pretty soon, he was making all kinds of promotional clothing items for movie crews, industry parties and even for Martin Scorsese’s 50th birthday a decade ago.
Now Perse is selling his men’s and women’s shirts and sportswear in 500 stores and expects to sell $10 million of the stuff this year.
Now you gotta wonder what Perse will do in 20 years for his own half-century birthday.
Fragrance du Jour
Earlier that night at Hollywood & Highland, shoppers wandered into Sephora, sipped the free champagne--thank- youverymuch--and indulged in the launch party for Stila cosmetics founder Jeanine Lobell’s Bouquet du Jour fragrance collection.
The line lets users customize scents by mixing combinations of the two $50 eaux de parfum, the three $30 lotions and the two shimmery $28 powders.
“You know how you wear the same thing and then you get bored and go buy something else, but ultimately, you go back to the thing you love,” Lobell said.
“This is a way to keep the thing you love.”
The collection has been selling so well that executives worried if they had ordered enough of the dried flowers that decorate the pink packages.
They had.
