James Perse

THE NEW JAMES PERSE STORE on Melrose Avenue is a triumph of beachified minimalism: white walls, sliding glass doors, skylights, a strip of courtyard flanked by golden bamboo. The one- and two-ply women's cotton and cashmere tops that redefined the notion of the T-shirt and launched the $20 million-a-year James Perse retail line six years ago are displayed on a short parade of mannequin busts set on a low-rise console. More shirts are tidily stacked beneath.

On the other side of the store, where warm blond flooring turns to matte concrete, men's pants with a silicone wash and drawstring waists fall from giant S hooks alongside long- and short-sleeved tees with and without exposed seams, the word PAIX, or silhouettes of doves and eagles. Large-scale black-and-white beach photos describe a mood rather than specific moments--a wave curling over itself, a row of palm trees--and along with four custom surfboards establish the preferred, if not necessarily the existing, emotional habitat of the James Perse customer. They are laid-back, appreciative of simplicity, sophisticated enough to gather that the shirt they just bought says "peace."

On the night before the store's opening in early August, Perse people were in jubilant evidence. They kissed cheeks and spilled giant grape vodka martinis. They sported significant pendants and perfect pedicures. The newly minted Ellen DeGeneres, who had Perse tops custom-made for her HBO special and bought piles more to wear on her new series, was there. Frequent buyer Sharon Stone came in a tie-dyed number from a few seasons back. Matthew Perry who wears Perse at all those tennis tournaments, was there, too, as was David Schwimmer, who came draped in a lissome brunet. The giant floral arrangement was a gift from Ashton and Demi, who'd recently loaded up on the merch after ditching their personal paparazzi.

Back in the party's outfield, near the tiny cotton onesies and hooded baby blankets, was a man with unpronounced posture, product-free hair, and a bottle of water. He wore baggy pants and a white tee topped by a brown overshirt. James Perse, master of the domain, was hosting in typical zero-key style. You'd have to be pretty keen to see that his sartorial salute to the event--the collared button-down shirt with a poplin front and T-shirt back and sleeves--was a season ahead of everyone else.

Another Perse was much easier to spot. Tommy, father of James and owner of Maxfield, the hyper-fashionable boutique up the street, and Maxfield Bleu around the corner, was just in from Paris and turned out like a been-there-done-that-a-lot graduate of the '60s: gray, curly, shoulder-length hair, his wrists wrapped in a jangle of Chrome Hearts bracelets, and a diamond-crusted skull, among other hardware, hanging from his neck. The lace-up crotch of his jester-stripe pants couldn't have measured much more than three inches, and a rotating flotilla of women buoyed his every move. Tommy is a rock star, everyone says. "James," declares one of the designer's friends, "is the dad." Truth is, "models and actresses literally throw themselves at James and he doesn't even notice," says another friend. "They could be sitting on his lap, and he'd be looking the other way thinking about something." Probably about the women's T-shirts that pour over the body like water. The scoop necks scooped just low enough to wink at cleavage, the boat necks so boated they float off one shoulder. His thin thermal pajama pants are roomy enough for yoga and brief enough to facilitate contemplation of the navel. His slip dresses skim a woman's form without making a sausage of it.

The men's line also matches comfort with the subtlest of styling. Slightly more structured than in previous seasons, the pieces still work as well for the beach as they do for a dinner date. The colors are so carefully considered, they're remarkable only on close inspection. A blue strikes just the right note between navy and denim, an orange is rich but not bright, khakis are deep and sure enough to fall on the noticeable side of neutral. AT NOON ON THE DAY AFTER the party, Perse is tidily carving up a quesadilla at a restaurant up the street. The opening, by all accounts, went swimmingly. "I think a lot of people got drunk," he says, somewhat surprised and not displeased. He went home with his girlfriend, Brandi Briskman, an interior designer, while the rest of their posse hit the town. "I was dead tired," he says. "I couldn't move." The exhaustion was not from the weeks in overdrive. It was from the relief. After 11 years in the schmatte trade, he could finally show his work as a coherent idea. With the store, instead of being the maker of piecemeal products, Perse is the soul of a lifestyle. "I finally got to package the concept," he says. "And people got it. It's hard to look at yourself, look at what you do, be very focused, and say one thing. I think I finally sort of pulled it off."

Like Calvin or Ralph or Armani, Perse has an innate understanding of his customers, because in reality, or at least in spirit, they are just like him. He lives casually but grew up in the sophisticated milieu of his father and of Maxfield, the 34-year-old shop that brought the edgy fashions of designers like Yohji Yamamoto, Commes des Garcons, and Helmut Lang to LA He lives within walking distance of three sets of friends he's known since his Beverly High days and stops in to make himself snacks from their refrigerators on his way home. He has an appreciation for the finer things in life but limits his indulgence in them. "I've given up trying to get him to go out to dinner when he's in New York," says Shoshana Lonstein, an old friend (and Jerry Seinfeld's ex) who lives in Manhattan and has a clothing line of her own. "We just meet for a drink, and he drills me about my numbers. He's always thinking about work."

Perse, who is 31, was born and raised in L.A. When he was young, his parents split, and he moved briefly to Maryland with his mother, Linda Marks, who makes her living renovating houses. He returned for a stint at Beverly High before going to Gunnery, a prep school in Massachusetts, to play hockey. After graduating, he did a year at Denison University. Then in 1994, he decided to build a better baseball hat. "Stussy had just come out with the first designer caps," Perse says. "They had the right shapes and color waves and logos--they were very cool." He took the idea further by creating low-crown, fitted "antitrucker" hats that used high-quality materials and selling them to the studios. "My theory was, if you're creating merchandise for a movie release, say, and you buy 10,000 hats, if they're hideous, what's the point? You hand them out and they go right into someone's closet. So you saved yourself a buck but achieved nothing. You have to make something cool enough that people will be walking around the city wearing it."

Perse excelled at just that. "I became the niche hat guy," he says. Then he had another idea: promotional T-shirts for women. Until then, a gimme-shirt for women meant a men's small. Perse made shirts more familiar with their anatomy and had his sister, Rachel (she currently manages Maxfield Bleu), try them out. "I have a picture of her in one of the early ones," he says. "She was making sure it was cool, whatever. And it was. It said HARD ROCK, but it was like 'I would wear this--no problem.'"

As he learned more about the manufacturing process, Perse found himself buying sample bits of more expensive fabrics. "Why, I have no idea," he says now. "I was just interested." They were too pricey for his rock band shirts but came in handy in 1997, when against his father's advice he started his own label with a line of sexy women's tops made of imported yarns. Soon he was doing manly men's versions. Then pants. And dresses. And loungewear. And skirts. And jackets. This January the children's line debuted.

"Three years ago my friend Dan had a baby, and I went to the hospital to visit," Perse says. "I stole a onesie, brought it back to the factory, and made a copy with my own material." It was a hit with the infant and every parent who saw and felt it. After much prodding, and the birth of Dan's second child, Perse came out with a line that shrinks the grown-up styles down to Mini-Me versions for kids: chocolate and forest green jackets with rolled hems, undershirts with eagles, doves, and the omnipresent PAIX. Dan's kids are the fit models for the Baby James collection "They come down to the warehouse and terrorize me," he says. "It's complete chaos. Let's just say they're very comfortable with their Uncle James."