NYLON - October 2007 - (Page 58) Danielle, NYC “It’s all about layering Fred Perry’s basic cotton polos under their checkered shirt dress.” PERRY STREET “Not one of us,” a chairman of the Lawn Tennis Association famously mumbled when Fred Perry, the British answer to France’s René Lacoste, took yet another title. Perry, who was born in 1909, was an outsider from a humble, working-class family who infiltrated the upper crust tennis world, winning four Grand Slams and three Wimbledon tournaments in the course of his career. He then decamped to Hollywood where he coached tennis to the likes of Charlie Chaplin and Errol Flynn and hobnobbed with starlets. When a tennis injury forced Perry into early retirement in the ’40s, he got back into the game by launching a line of sweatbands for Wimbledon players. The brand’s wreath logo soon caught on, and Fred Perry expanded to a full clothing collection for men and women; it’s the zip-up jackets and cotton piqué sports shirts, though, that still get our pulses racing—game or no game. JENNY FELDMAN MATCH POINTS FRED PERRY’S HIGH-SCORING MOMENTS cult of Fred Perry and the actress Helen Vinson at a premiere, 1936. Fred Perry on the court in 1933. A 1970 advertisement for the brand. Singer Damon Gough, a.k.a. Badly Drawn Boy, in Fred Perry circa 2000. danielle photographed by jung kim. tomo photographed by jimmy fontaine. OVER THE YEARS, FRED PERRY HAS EVOLVED FROM TENNIS GEAR TO STREETWEAR, AND HAS BEEN CHAMPIONED BY ATHLETES, MOVIE STARS, AND TRENDSETTERS ALIKE. Tomo, Palo Alto “I love Fred Perry because it puts a unique twist on patterns and lines without being too kitschy. Also the menswear is so classic.”
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