After New York's sweltering summer, it wasn't hard for Jerry Kaye, creative director of Perry Ellis menswear for nearly ten years, to confront the challenge of designing a collection for spring/summer 2006. Shorts, drawstring pants, flip-flops, lightweight natural fibers, fine-gauge knits, and colors that already looked sun-bleached were some of his solutions, as they were for almost every other menswear designer in New York. And Kaye opted for a relaxed look by using the perma-crinkled cotton/metal hybrid seen on most of the men's catwalks this season.
But Kaye had also been on vacation in Mykonos, which offers a different perspective on summer dressing than you get on, say, a weekend in the Hamptons. Hence the deep neckline on a blinding white piqué shirt or the relaxed but slightly racy evening ensemble of ivory wool jacket, black linen tank, and tuxedo pant. The slimmer, slightly cropped silhouette suggested a modish Mediterranean male. And Greece could have been the inspiration for a fruity palette of melon, banana, and tangerine (the standout shade, seen in a cotton trench), along with a sky blue that was purest Med. Paired with sand and oatmeal tones, these colors made for striking accents.
Kaye's signature continues to be an attention to luxe detailing: a suede cardigan with cabled cashmere sleeves and collar, for instance, or another cardigan, also in cashmere, that closed with horn toggles. But with this collection, he cut loose in the face of heat waves to come.
