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Technicolor Gene

by Bart Boehlert

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	"I got my love of color from my parents"

Beach ball orange, lemon drop yellow, robin's egg blue: these happy hues and more dominate the first menswear collection of designer Gene Meyer who has already made a name for himself as an ingenious creator of men's ties and women's scarves. With this first clothing collection, Meyer suggests that his customers boldly wear what few men have worn before: brightly colored sweaters, strongly patterned shirts, and ties decorated with giant polka dots or a big star.

"I got my love of color from my parents," says Meyer. "My father was a golfer and on the weekends he walked out of the house wearing these wild mixes of things. He wore bright cardigans probably made out of Orlon, batik pants, Lily Pulitzer pants, and bright golf shoes. The funny thing was the way he mixed them. It never matched." His mother too greatly influenced him. "The house was always really colorful," says Meyer. "My mother hired a decorator but she had a flair for arranging furniture. She was really attractive and still is."

Meyer grew up in Louisville, Kentucky with a brother seven years younger who, he reports, is equally creative. Meyer moved to New York City and worked for eleven years as an assistant to fashion maestro Geoffrey Beene before trying his own hand at designing women's clothes.

It was with his women's scarves and later his men's ties though that he first made his mark. These accessories featured large abstract geometric patterns rendered in beautiful, improbable colors that blew in like a fresh breeze. His scarves have been discontinued but he still produces his ties and a collection of silk box shorts, the patterns of which Meyer creates by cutting large simple shapes out of colored paper and mixing them in a collage, like Matisse did at the end of his life.

This year, Meyer won a CFDA award, the fashion "Oscar," the Council of Fashion Designers of America's award for best men's accessories. At the ceremony, Meyer showed a cheeky video of a group of boys playing strip poker, losing their colorful ties and boxers. Charlie Rose, a fan, presented Meyer with his statuette.

And now comes Meyer's first menswear collection, backed by the Italian-American clothing company Mondo, produced in Italy, and to be found in stores this fall.

On display in Mondo's midtown showroom are skinny cordoroy suits in five colors, soft cotton jersey dress shirts in checks or polka dots that can be worn with a tie or not, v-neck and cardigan Shetland sweaters in Life-saver colors, short lambswool t-shirts in softer, dustier tones, and a cordoroy sports jacket with shirt cuffs like one Meyer saw in an Elvis Presley movie.

A lot of the clothes are in peaceful blues or greens which Meyer favors "because my eyes are blue. I'm worried about what I'll do next season though. I can't do blue all the time!" The shape and silhouette of the pieces are small and close to the body, reminiscent of the Fifties. "I've always liked things smaller," says Meyer.

"I think it's sexier on a man than a lot of fabric swinging around." Is that an anti-Armani sentiment? "Men's fashion has been taken over by the Armanis of the world in the last fifteen years," says Meyer. "It's not my color thing--all that beige and taupe drains people. I've always liked the English-American taste better--the Kennedys, the Ivy League look. It's been harder for someone like myself because Armani is the standard."

The next day, Meyer is found in his small work studio downtown, the walls of which are completely covered with his favorite pictures from glossy magazines. "Men's fashion is changing now," he says. "There used to be a lot of closeted designers but now designers aren't hiding their sexuality so more femininity is coming into men's fashion in a very beautiful way." And how did the designer arrive at his very singular, colorful, sophisticated style? "It came from being around my parents," says Meyer simply. "Style is when you are that person and you see things that way."