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Perry Ellis (brand)

American designer fashion clothing brand

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionFeb 28, 2026
Entity authorityQ7169773 ↗
Source-derived summary

Perry Ellis is an American designer fashion clothing brand owned by Perry Ellis International founded by eponymous American designer Perry Ellis.

In June 2003, Perry Ellis merged with Salant Corporation, manufacturer of the brand's clothes, for about $80 million. The combined company offers about 25 brands.

History

Perry Ellis, with his parent company The Vera Companies, founded his own fashion house, Perry Ellis International, in 1978. He opened his showroom on New York's Seventh Avenue. As chairman and head designer he started the Perry Ellis Menswear Collection. Perry Ellis won eight Coty Awards between 1979 and 1984 (the last year that they were given) and a Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) Award in 1983. He served as President of the CFDA in 1984

Ellis' colleague, Richard Haines, attributed to him "classic with a twist." Perry Ellis said he was inspired "to design clothes that are more obtainable, more relaxed, but ultimately more stylish and witty."

In early 1986, Robert L. McDonald, a former film producer and friend of Ellis, succeeded Laughlin Barker, Ellis' domestic partner, who had died in January of that year as president of Perry Ellis International. After Ellis' death in May 1986, McDonald announced that under the terms of Ellis' will he had full control of the company in trust for Ellis' heirs. "Perry wanted us to continue, of course", he said of the fashion house's future.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Perry Ellis (brand)” is american designer fashion clothing brand. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Perry, Ellis and brand, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2003, 1978, 1979, 1984—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Perry, Ellis and brand is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “american designer fashion clothing brand” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 28, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7169773. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2003, 1978, 1979 and 1984.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Perry Ellis (brand)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Perry Ellis (brand) primary sources, Perry Ellis (brand) archive and Perry research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Perry Ellis (brand)”?
  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Perry Ellis (brand)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.