Perry Ellis creative director, John Crocco, was thinking of Philip Johnson s Glass House in New Canaan, Connecticut, when he began designing the season. That house, dappled in soft evening light, gave rise to the neutral, camel-infused palette, with lovely twilight greens and grays; its architecture became some of the pieced, paneled, and color-blocked garments.
A Connecticut country-house vibe suffused the whole collection, in fact—one that was more WASP than Modernist. There were riding jackets and car coats, soft plaid trousers and chunky cabled knits. A tip of the hat to the now came courtesy of unexpected pairings of fabric and style: piped tux pants made in washed corduroy, or formal-cut trousers made of denim, not wool. A short wool Eisenhower jacket bucked its midcentury military roots to arrive in myriad forms: in tonal, patchwork gray wool flannel; in an exploded plaid print; and in a version Crocco declared his favorite, a piecemeal shearling, worn with appropriate aplomb by a sauntering, swaggerly Sean O Pry.
