Perry Ellis has a lot going for it in 2019. The brand recently launched the nostalgia-soaked diffusion line called Perry Ellis America, made up exclusively of archival pieces plucked from its ’80s heyday. Think: color-blocked windbreakers, logo’d hoodies, and track pants. (Justin and Hailey Bieber are already fans.) As for the main line, Perry Ellis has always been a brand known for its prints, and the “look” of this summer was indisputably a boldly printed camp shirt. Guys wore them over T-shirts and girls wore them with bike shorts; it’s a happily unisex trend. Creative director Michael Maccari said the women in his office frequently shop the collection, and they’ve likely called dibs on the Spring 2020 shirts that mimic abstract paintings.
Those shirts merged Maccari’s two key influences: the Luca Guadagnino film A Bigger Splash (set in Sicily and starring Tilda Swinton and Ralph Fiennes) and the artwork of David Hockney. Maccari was designing the collection last fall, just after one of Hockney’s famous swimming pool paintings sold for $90 million, making him the priciest living artist in history (though he was surpassed by Jeff Koons in May). Hockney’s crisp, deeply saturated paintings of water and nature informed the painterly prints, while the artist’s own preppy style informed the “nerdy” knit polos. Those items were bright spots in a classic-leaning collection. The news in suiting and 9-to-5 staples tends to be smaller tweaks at Perry Ellis, like changing the scale of a stripe or applying a special treatment to a suit to make it machine-washable. The guys (and girls) who are drawn to the more fun, vibrant printed shirts will likely skip the business-y stuff and consider the more casual pieces, like a buttery-soft garment-dyed twill chore jacket.
