[00:16] Meg: Welcome to Desperately Seeking the '80s. I am Meg.

[00:19] Jessica: And I'm Jessica. And Meg and I have been friends since 1982. We got through middle school and high school together here in New York City, where we still live.

[00:28] Meg: And where we podcast about New York City in the '80s. I do ripped from the headlines.

[00:32] Jessica: And I do pop culture.

[00:34] Meg: Jessica, March 1. That is what today is.

[00:37] Jessica: Yes.

[00:38] Meg: And guess why that's super important.

[00:41] Jessica: I'm having a feeling it has to do with us.

[00:46] Meg: March 1, 2022, is when we first dropped our first three episodes of this podcast. So this is, like, officially our birthday.

[00:56] Jessica: Happy birthday. Happy birthday. I think that was a song that was featured on the Sixteen Candles soundtrack, actually, by oh, God. Wasn't Missing Persons. It'll come to me. But anyway, hi. Happy birthday.

[01:13] Meg: Happy birthday.

[01:15] Jessica: Exciting. Do you have any news?

[01:19] Meg: I do. I wanted to share with you something that Ben, BFF of the podcast.

[01:25] Jessica: Altered Images, that was the name of the band that did Happy Birthday.

[01:28] Meg: Thank you.

[01:29] Jessica: Oh, my God.

[01:31] Meg: You're like my brain.

[01:32] Jessica: I'm like, thank God. There's still, like, one atom rattling around in my skull.

[01:38] Meg: So this is from Ben, and he writes he lives in LA. I believe. I loved the most recent episode. I worked at an auction house, so I loved all of the auction representing. So this is the episode about Andre Leon Talley. Jessica is so right that you can learn a lot about a person from their auction, which is what I love about the work. I always say my job is writing biographies of people through the stories of their things.

[02:05] Jessica: He writes catalogs.

[02:06] Meg: He writes catalogs.

[02:07] Jessica: Well, yay Ben. First off, thank you, Ben, for saying that I'm correct. That is one of my favorite things to hear. And secondly, yay, that we were able to resonate with you.

[02:18] Meg: And then he says, your podcast is giving me a big case of New York nostalgia. I've been dreaming that's in all caps about New York.

[02:29] Jessica: I love New York. Awww, dreaming. Yeah. Well, we dream of you, Ben.

[02:37] Meg: And how about this? Guess who is following us?

[02:41] Jessica: Someone famous?

[02:42] Meg: Yeah. Andy Kaufman.

[02:44] Jessica: That's not possible.

[02:46] Meg: Well, it is because there is an official website, the Andy Kaufman website, that is, like, protected and I don't know who the official person is who runs it or whatever, but that website has an Instagram and I had shared something from that. And that's why they knew who we were and they started following us. And they liked one of our posts, one of our Andy Kaufman appreciation posts.

[03:12] Jessica: Oh, my God. But it's like a fan page or something.

[03:15] Meg: No, it's Andy Kaufman or the equivalent.

[03:19] Jessica: Okay. But we do know that it's not, the poor man died.

[03:22] Meg: Let's think of Andy Kaufman as a spirit out in the world.

[03:27] Jessica: Maybe it's Bob Zmuda, who was Tony Clifton when Andy Kaufman wasn't.

[03:30] Meg: I mean right? Or his siblings. I think his siblings are very active in his estate.

[03:34] Jessica: Well I love, that is just the greatest.

[03:38] Meg: I mean, look, it's, like, as close as we're ever going to get, so I will take it.

[03:40] Jessica: I am beyond delighted. Yeah us.

[03:46] Meg: And did you know that there's, like, a documentary about Jim Carrey being obsessed with Andy Kaufman? I have not seen it, and I want to see it. I'm going to get Billy to watch Man on the Moon and then watch the documentary.

[04:01] Jessica: Yeah, the documentary sort of gave me the I didn't watch it. The concept of it gave me the creeps a little bit. So let me know what you think after you after you view.

[04:11] Meg: Absolutely. Do you want to get started?

[04:13] Jessica: Yes.

[04:24] Meg: So this is the first episode of our second year.

[04:30] Jessica: Okay. Let's just have a moment to let that sink in. Ommmmmm

[04:36] Meg: Ommmm. And so it's a big episode.

[04:39] Jessica: Oh, God.

[04:39] Meg: It's going to be a two parter.

[04:41] Jessica: Is this going to be super gory? Is this as gory as our very first episode, the girl in the trunk?

[04:46] Meg: I will let you decide. You can be the judge of that.

[04:49] Jessica: In other words. Hey. Yes.

[04:52] Meg: But in lieu of an engagement question, I'm going to do an engagement statement. But just so you know, this is just the first I'm going to have to tell this story in two parts.

[05:04] Jessica: All right.

[05:04] Meg: And this is the first part of the story.

[05:07] Jessica: Okay.

[05:07] Meg: All right. So my thought was, when we were growing up, we talked about New York City as a melting pot in the best of ways.

[05:16] Jessica: Right.

[05:17] Meg: But I think it's fair to say that most groups are actually living in silos, like, butted up against each other and trying pretty hard to avoid each other. We, each group would hear scandalous things about another group.

[05:32] Jessica: Are you saying that this is how it was in the past?

[05:35] Meg: Yeah.

[05:35] Jessica: Okay.

[05:36] Meg: When we were growing up in the '80s.

[05:38] Jessica: So it was supposedly a glorious or was it a gorgeous mosaic, but in fact or in fact, a melting pot.

[05:44] Meg: Right.

[05:44] Jessica: Maybe he was right about a gorgeous mosaic. Every tile up against anyway, it doesn't.

[05:49] Meg: Matter, but each tile of the mosaic was like, I'm a little nervous about that other tile, and I'm not really sure if I want to run into that tile voluntarily.

[05:59] Jessica: Okay.

[05:59] Meg: And that we didn't know very much about all the other different tiles, all the other different groups, and that we would hear rumors and believe them, but if we ever heard a rumor about our own group, we'd be like, that's bullshit. They totally don't get it. Do you see what I'm saying?

[06:19] Jessica: I do. Am I correct in assuming that you mean you're dividing the groups along racial lines, along economic lines, along geographic lines, all the above, every demographic, rather every variable?

[06:39] Meg: Yeah. Maybe men and women, but we all had to live together, so it's a little different. But certainly in terms of neighborhoods.

[06:46] Jessica: Yeah. Well, I mean, I think that that supports something that we've talked about several times on the podcast, which is that New York is a collection of neighborhoods and that we are definitely a small island off the coast of America. So there is the New York way. The joke in New York is that if you have to go outside a ten block radius around your apartment, there's just way too much exertion.

[07:14] Meg: Sure, but nowadays, as opposed to nowadays, then people weren't really cross pollinating as much as we do now. We didn't know much about all the other groups.

[07:25] Jessica: Oh, hell no.

[07:27] Meg: And the groups didn't know about each other. So if you heard a rumor about another group, you believed it. But if you heard that rumor about yourself, you'd be like, that's bullshit.

[07:34] Jessica: Oh, yes, correct. I agree with you fully.

[07:36] Meg: On April 19, 1989, at 08:50 P.M., Trisha Meili left her apartment on East 83rd Street near York Avenue for her evening run. Her friend and coworker at Salomon Brothers, Pat Garrett, planned to meet her back at her place at 10:00 P.M. To see her new stereo. She was wearing black leggings and a long sleeve white T shirt over her bra. Saucony sneakers. Okay, thank you. And a walkman. Her keys were in a velcro pouch attached to one of her sneakers, and she wore a small gold ring shaped like a bow. She was 28, by the way. She always took the same route. Entering Central Park at 84th street just north of The Met. She was a very accomplished runner. Taking the bridle path north past the reservoir onto East Drive, taking a left on the 101st Street Cross Drive and looping back south to 84th street. The 102nd Street Cross Drive is quiet and isolated and lined with trees. I never used to walk it until kind of recently when I just like walking east-west, so it's sort of a recent discovery for me. I don't know if you know much about it or have you familiar I.

[09:05] Jessica: I am familiar with it.

[09:06] Meg: Joggers and bicyclists love it because it's closed to regular traffic. It was here at 9:15 when Trisha was hit on the back of the head with a large branch, dragged off the road and into the woods about 40ft off the road, she was raped and beaten repeatedly in the head with a rock. Her hands were tied in front of her face with her shirt, and she was left to die. At about the time Trisha was entering the park at 84th and Fifth, a group of about 30 teenaged boys entered the park at 110th and Fifth Avenue. Many of the kids had school off that day because of Passover. There was a full moon and nice spring weather. Different groups of friends in Harlem who were just hanging out with each other, they started running into each other, looking for something to do. They didn't all know each other, but many could recognize each other from the neighborhood and also from Schomburg Plaza. The 35 story double towers on the corner of the park, which was built in the provide low income and medium income housing. The smaller groups of kids merged into a larger group that swept into the park. As they moved south through the park, some of the kids threw rocks at a cab. Some badly beat a drunk man badly and stole his food and beer. They ran after a couple on a tandem bike, but they weren't able to knock them over. Between 9:00 and 10:00 P.M., seven attacks and robberies were reported along East Drive and the north end of the reservoir. The victims were all men except the woman on the tandem bike, and all except the drunk man were biking or jogging. As the cops responded to the reports, the kids scattered and about 20 were taken in for questioning on Wednesday night, Raymond Santana and Kevin Richardson, both 14 years old, along with three other teenagers, were taken to the Central Park precinct. The underage boys were not supposed to be questioned without a guardian, so everyone waited as the parents arrived. The parents were told that the boys would be given summons for family court and ultimately sent home. But at 01:30, A.M., two drinking buddies were crossing through the park, headed home to the East Side when they stumbled across Trisha's bloodied body in a muddy puddle. She was barely alive. She was naked except for her bra, which had been pushed up, and her legs were involuntarily thrashing. One of her eyes was puffed shut. The other was bulging but unfocused and did not respond to a flashlight, which is a bad sign. Brain damage. Her pulse was weak, her head was cracked. When she arrived at Metropolitan Hospital, the doctors called her functionally exsanguinated.

[12:07] Jessica: Oh my God.

[12:08] Meg: She rated a four on the Glasgow Coma Scale. The lowest possible score is a three for someone in a deep coma.

[12:16] Jessica: Oh my God.

[12:17] Meg: They said she was likely to die. At 03:00, A.M. Reports about the unidentified woman hit the Central Park Precinct and the decision was made to hold the teenagers overnight. And the next morning, police headed to Schomburg Plaza to round up more suspects in the marauding. They had a list of names of kids to interview. Antron McCray, 15, was brought in with his parents. Yusuf Salaam, 15, was with Korey Wise, who was 16 when the police approached him. Korey went with Yusuf to the precinct because he was his friend and didn't want him to go alone. By this point, the press had heard about the unidentified jogger and that a number of Black and Hispanic teenagers were being questioned. The boys, when they were brought into the precinct, had to pass through a gauntlet of press to get into the precinct to begin their interviews. Now just a moment to talk about how the process is supposed to work.

[13:16] Jessica: I know that you're looking at me expectantly, waiting for a response. I'm sitting here with my jaw hanging down, sort of holding my breath. I remember this and I remember the visceral reactions at the time and the intensity of the horror over the scene. So as you're speaking about it, it's coming flooding back and I'm in a rigor of shock remembering.

[13:47] Meg: Right. I'm going to talk about interviews and interrogations in a second, but just where we've left off. These boys aren't suspects. They've got questions to answer. But they're walking through a press gauntlet.

[14:00] Jessica: I got it.

[14:01] Meg: And they're children.

[14:02] Jessica: Yes.

[14:03] Meg: This is the way the process is supposed to work. An interview is a fact finding mission and is distinct from an interrogation. I didn't know this. I read about it this morning. Nor did I. Detectives use interviews to assess guilt or innocence. They use interrogations on people they believe are guilty in order to get a confession. So there's just a different goal. Without any scientific evidence available to them at this point in the story, the detectives assumed the teenagers were guilty and began interrogating them. They just skipped the whole interview process. The detectives used a variety of tactics. They told each of the boys that the others had named him. A lie. In some cases it was a lie. Not all, because they did start naming each other when they were like, well, he said my name. Well, I'll say his name. Right. The police said that they had found fingerprints on the jogger's clothes. Lie. They did not give them food or let them sleep for hours. They played good cop, bad cop, alternating between intimidation and love bombing. God. They berated them, smacking Korey and Kevin in the head. I don't know if they smack the others, but they smacked those two. They promised the boys and their families that they could go home if they simply told the story the police wanted to hear.

[15:29] Jessica: Oh, God.

[15:30] Meg: And they took advantage of the parents limited experience with the system. Some of the other boys who were brought in confessed to the other park crimes, but steadfastly denied knowing anything about the jogger. Those boys were sent home with a summons. But Kevin, Antron, Raymond, Yusuf and Korey each buckled under the detective's intimidation and confessed to being accomplices in the rape and assault to varying degrees. And they named the other boys. They named each other. And after hours of interrogation, their confessions were videotaped. The irony is that because they had no experience with the police, because they came from stable and supportive families, that they trusted authority and didn't realize that they were being railroaded. If they had actually been bad guys out to do bad things, they probably would have had a record and they probably would have had experience being arrested for things. None of them had been arrested for anything before, so they just didn't know what they were in for. They weren't savvy in the ways of the police. It seems like the detectives legitimately believed the boys were guilty. But it's strange that the police didn't pick up on the fact that not one of the boys provided any correct details about what happened to the jogger. The police didn't know so much about what the circumstances were, but they knew some things and the boys didn't. Like, isn't that a tip off? Every fact the boys gave was fed to them. They didn't even know where the assault took place. And the police at the time were like, well, maybe they just don't know the park very well.

[17:12] Meg: It's like what? It's their backyard. What are you talking about? Their confessions were full of police language, unconscious, numerous friends, eastbound, like, just words that kids don't use. Except for Korey and Yusuf, the boys didn't even know each other. Antron's name shows up in all of their confessions, even though everyone called him Tron. So it'd be like someone accusing me by claiming Margaret committed a crime, right? Be like, what are you talking about? Who are you talking about? Right? Their confessions are riddled with mistakes, all of which were overlooked or explained away by the detectives and eventually the prosecutors. And the information recorded is very selective and certainly doesn't include the boy's repeated denials. When prosecutor Elizabeth Lederer spoke to Korey on video, she showed him photos of Trisha's injuries. Quote, "Do you see the side of her head? How did those marks get on her head?" And Korey says "knife." And she says, "those aren't the injuries of a knife. The doctor says she has a fractured skull," so she keeps prodding him until finally Korey tries, "The more it looks like, it looks like a rock wound." She just guides him right there.

[18:31] Jessica: Oh, yeah.

[18:32] Meg: He clearly has no idea how this woman was hurt, but wants to get the story right. These particular kinds of false confessions are called coerced compliant. The boys were confident of their innocence, but they confess because they were led to believe it was in their best interest to confess. So remember the other story that we told about that Long Island kid who was taken. Marty? Marty, who was taken in? He actually ended up believing that he had killed his parents. I mean, he realized he hadn't, but for a moment, he believed he had. These boys never thought that. They were just like, what do you need for me to get out of here? And no parents? Parents were there.

[19:15] Jessica: Oh, they were there?

[19:17] Meg: They were there, but they were being manipulated too. Like, the police would say, hey, Grandma, come with me for a second. And she would leave for, like, a few minutes. And in those few minutes, her grandson was alone with the police to be intimidated. Also, there was a language barrier issue. There were so many things that they did. They moved. Who was it? It was Raymond who's moved around from precinct to precinct, and his father kept trying to find him, and he would show up and they'd be like, oh, yeah, I'm sure he'll be back here soon.

[19:49] Jessica: Wow.

[19:50] Meg: Yeah. It was by any means necessary that they were going to get these confessions. 36 hours after the detectives decided to zero in on these boys for the rape of the jogger, they had incriminating statements from all five. They're good at their job. They went in to get a confession. They got confessions. In the meantime, Pat Garrett, Trish's friend, had arrived at Metropolitan Hospital after he and other coworkers heard about the unidentified jogger. He couldn't identify her swollen face.

[20:22] Jessica: Oh, my God.

[20:23] Meg: But he recognized her gold ring. While her identity was now known, most press would not print her name, and for many years she was referred to only as the Central Park Jogger. So next week, I'll talk about the press coverage and the trial and the aftermath. But spoiler, they didn't do it. While the Marty story was interesting about false confessions, and there is something interesting about false confessions. To me, what stands out, and that's why my engagement statement or whatever was like, what's up with these people in authority who thought they knew everything about these kids without even really asking them? Well, they made that so many assumptions.

[21:11] Jessica: Yes, but isn't that always the perspective that law enforcement takes?

[21:19] Meg: I can't speak to that. I don't know about that. I don't know if law enforcement always thinks that way about other people. I admit it's a sweeping statement. Lord. I'm just talking about what I think is notable about this case is all the assumptions that they made without even doing just the slightest bit of research. These were decent kids. They'd been part of the group, but they hadn't been part of the people who did the bad things, the rock throwing. I have a question. Yeah.

[21:50] Jessica: Tell me if I'm remembering this properly. Clearly, I'm not being an apologist for the cops, but I'm just trying to think about what the mindset was at the time and how it could be that the police would just draw these conclusions and have this assumption of omniscience. Is that the word I'm looking for? They're omniscient.

[22:13] Meg: Pretty confident in their own gut.

[22:16] Jessica: So when was the wilding incident?

[22:19] Meg: That's what we're talking about. But they made that word up. Did you know that?

[22:24] Jessica: Yes, but I thought that there were kids who were a bit.

[22:26] Meg: This is what, that's what that evening was.

[22:32] Jessica: That even, but in addition to that. I'm saying preceding that.

[22:34] Meg: No, not preceding. This is the first time, and I was going to talk about next week the whole wild, how wilding entered into the vernacular. It was something the police misheard in the interrogations of these boys.

[22:49] Jessica: I see.

[22:50] Meg: And became a word and the press latched onto it and they started using that as though it's something that existed.

[22:59] Jessica: Yeah.

[22:59] Meg: No, they kind of made it up. What I remember is that we were told that it was a common thing, groups of teenagers go out and wilding and that's a thing that people do. It's like, actually, that wasn't true. Sure, a group of kids can get in trouble, but not what this was and not called wilding. That was the press.

[23:23] Jessica: I think the other thing about this particular story, because it happened wait, what was the date again?

[23:29] Meg: April 19, 1989.

[23:32] Jessica: We were sophomores in college, so we were not in the city when this happened. And I'm just thinking about how my memory of it is really different from my memory of a lot of other things that we've talked about. It was a huge event, but I, I recall it as a, you know, outside looking in from the cornfields of Ohio.

[23:56] Meg: I was wondering whether we should get into the whole press thing today. But I will say this much about it because it is such a huge part of the story is that everyone believed it. They heard the story of the wilding, which is what the police, I think and I'm giving them huge benefit of the doubt that they didn't actually intentionally manufacture, intentionally manufacture anything. But at some point they knew they were wrong. But we'll get into that next week. The other thing that. Hold on. But when they threw that story to the press, the press believed every second of it and didn't question it. The public believed every second of it and didn't question it. And that is where I think a lot of culpability comes in.

[24:45] Jessica: Well, the other thing that I'm either remembering or misremembering, I don't know. But I'm trying to think about, like, well, why would this have been taken as gospel? Like, why was this unquestioned? And I'm thinking about our old friend Curtis Sliwa and the Guardian Angels. And first I was thinking about New York has a history of having, like the kids who went after Bernie Getz who wound up having a very bad time of it and the crime that was going on that moved Sliwa to start the Guardian Angels. And that was from the '70s. But I think that there was a preconceived not a preconceived notion, but the seeds had been planted already for there to be an acceptance of this idea that at the drop of a hat, oh, yes, kids have gone insane.

[25:42] Meg: Absolutely. Pete Hamill, I think, is a remarkable man. I have huge respect for him. What he wrote about these kids is inexcusable. And I'll get into that next week. But, yes, in response to a situation where economic disparity had caused the crime to escalate and people didn't trust each other and they made a lot of assumptions about people.

[26:09] Jessica: Do we know what Curtis Sliwa had to say about this incident?

[26:13] Meg: I do not know what Curtis Sliwa had to say about the Central Park Five, but I can look it up for next week.

[26:18] Jessica: That's something I would like to know. What was his input?

[26:21] Meg: My sources are the documentary, The Central Park Five, the series When They See Us, The New York Times, New York Magazine, The New Yorker, watching the interviews of these children. They are little boys, and they are being browbeaten, and there's nothing else that I can see than that. And it is very interesting to me that those grown people surrounded these little boys and did that to them is absolutely shocking to me. Not to say that a 13 year old, a 14 year old can't do something really bad. They do not act like criminals. And that's even after hours and hours and hours of being browbeaten so that they're admitting to things that are just in their imagination, I think it's worth noting that they were seen differently.

[27:25] Jessica: Hello, Meg.

[27:26] Meg: Hello.

[27:27] Jessica: I have an engagement question for you.

[27:30] Meg: Okay.

[27:31] Jessica: Have you ever been a bridesmaid?

[27:34] Meg: Yes.

[27:35] Jessica: How many times?

[27:37] Meg: Not as often as you'd think.

[27:40] Jessica: So you were always the bride? Never the bridesmaid.

[27:44] Meg: Most notably, I think, for my brother's wedding.

[27:47] Jessica: And for any of the weddings that you were participating in, did you have to wear a bridesmaid's dress?

[27:56] Meg: Yes, I did. Anything memorable? For my brother's wedding? Yeah, we all wore the same outfit.

[28:04] Jessica: What was the outfit?

[28:05] Meg: It was silk, I guess, and off the shoulder teal. Shiny. Well. And for my aunt's wedding, because I was in that wedding party, too, she was worried that I wasn't going to like the dress that she picked out, so she ended up because I was dressing. Were you a teenager? Yeah. Okay.

[28:28] Jessica: So you were impossible?

[28:31] Meg: Right. Although I don't know why she was so worried. But she did pick out something from Laura Ashley that you would think I wouldn't like, but actually, I did like it, and I looked adorable.

[28:41] Jessica: All right, then. Well, the first bridesmaids dress that I wore was right after we graduated from Kenyon College. Not we, but my other friends and I. And it was a first on many levels. I was supplied with fabric and a pattern.

[29:01] Meg: Oh, my.

[29:02] Jessica: And I had to get a dress maker to make the dress. What? I'd never heard of what did I know who did the pattern? Thankfully, my mother had a dressmaker. No, but where'd the pattern come from. Butterick's? I don't know. Like one of those companies, even though.

[29:20] Meg: You could do that, you could, like, order a pattern from.

[29:25] Jessica: That's how a lot of clothing, you know, like Vogue makes their own patterns, and there's lots of different companies that make dress patterns. But anyway, of particular interest to me in my adulthood, and it's what caused me during the pandemic to purchase a sewing machine, is you can buy vintage patterns. That's very cool. So you can make the 1940's wide leg sailor pants of your dreams.

[29:54] Meg: I do remember this one thing about the teal outfit that it was in two pieces, and I sent them my size, and they ordered it, but when everyone tried on their sizes, they're all the wrong size. Really, what it was was I am one size smaller on the top than I am on the bottom.

[30:14] Jessica: Me too.

[30:16] Meg: And my brother's wife to be, fiance. Her family is not shaped that way. They are incredibly lean. And so we did a lot of, like, trading back and forth between the skirts. I got the bigger.

[30:33] Jessica: Okay. And mine was a shiny blue, like an electric blue. And when I got married the first time, I had bridesmaids, and I just asked that everyone wear a black dress that they already owned because I was like, I'm not going to ask you to buy a dress. So in the '90s, late '90s, I think I was a bridesmaid in a wedding from a college friend to whom I no longer speak. Oh, you know who that is?

[31:00] Meg: Who?

[31:01] Jessica: The one who ran off with my second husband. Oh, that one. That one.

[31:05] Meg: Okay. I thought you're talking about somebody else. And I was like, you're already talking to her again.

[31:11] Jessica: No, not that one. For her wedding, she went after a look that was very popular at the time. Do you remember ball gowns being worn with T shirts or little sweater sets?

[31:26] Meg: I like that look.

[31:28] Jessica: Well, we did not look so great with our and we had to have the skirts. I think we were provided with the gray satin ball skirts, but we had to have them tailored. I don't know what the hell it was. Anyway, so there I was wearing a black, it was the most depressing outfit. We looked like a storm. We had black twinsets and dark gray satin ball gowns. It was, like, grim. It was grim. Anyway, do you know who started that look?

[32:01] Meg: No.

[32:02] Jessica: We've talked about him on the 'cast, and he was in Fame.

[32:07] Meg: Isaac Mizrahi

[32:08] Jessica: Yes.

[32:09] Meg: I really do love that look.

[32:12] Jessica: It was a great look. If you're 6ft tall and you weigh 4 pounds and you have a little baby tee.

[32:18] Meg: I think I could pull it off now. Well, maybe not.

[32:20] Jessica: I don't know.

[32:21] Meg: Whatever. May I try?

[32:23] Jessica: Yes. I endorse it. I think you should do whatever pleases you.

[32:28] Meg: I remember being happy when I was wearing those outfits.

[32:32] Jessica: I liked the flowy skirt with the baby tee. I'm talking about a full on ball skirt, like voluminous.

[32:40] Meg: I know what you're talking about. I got one of those.

[32:43] Jessica: And if you're a short person like I am, you look like you're standing in a hole. It's absolutely ridiculous. But anyway, it was one of the great '90s looks. Good on him. That Isaac Mizrahi was responsible for. And the reason that I'm bringing up our good friend Isaac this is our segue from a previous podcast to today's subject. Because here's something I didn't know. So I'm now going to reveal one of my sources, i-D Magazine or i-D Vice. Isaac Mizrahi is talking about in this article about some of his influences and who he worked for, and one of the first people he worked for in fashion who was influenced by another thing that we talk about on this podcast. So here we go. This is an episode where I talk about people we lost in the '80s due to AIDS. Okay. And the person who gave Isaac Mizrahi one of his first jobs was Perry Ellis.

[33:47] Jessica: Remember Perry Ellis sportswear and Perry Ellis. That's of a time. And Perry Ellis in 1981 or '82, did a collection based on Chariots of Fire. Whoa. And I don't know if you recall, but between '80 and '82, there was a lot of 1920s stuff going on. So. The most notable being Chariots of Fire and Brideshead Revisited.

[34:14] Meg: God, I love Brideshead Revisited.

[34:16] Jessica: I mean, is that not the greatest? Yes.

[34:18] Meg: With Jeremy Irons And Anthony Edwards.

[34:20] Jessica: So we were at Nightingale when that was on. So am I right about Anthony Edwards? No, Anthony Andrews.

[34:27] Meg: Andrews. Anthony Andrews.

[34:28] Jessica: I remember there being a like a discussion like, were you Anthony Andrews person or were you a Jeremy Irons person?

[34:36] Meg: Anthony Andrews all the way.

[34:37] Jessica: No way. Jeremy Irons. You know that I like someone who looks like they're dying of consumption.

[34:43] Meg: I like the pretty boy.

[34:44] Jessica: No, I liked the angular. It's like, why I like Paul Weller so much. It's like a whole thing, like a Victorian on the death doorstep. That's what I'm all about. But anyway, so he was talking about his working with Perry Ellis during that period. And so I was like, oh, my God, this is so amazing. And I learned a lot about a brand and a man who I had a very particular vision of or an understanding of and found out that I was absolutely incorrect. And he was so much more interesting than what I thought.

[35:21] Meg: The only thing I can think of about Perry Ellis is, I think, pale. I think, like, off white and beige. Very beige, right? Right?

[35:31] Jessica: Not always.

[35:33] Meg: Okay.

[35:34] Jessica: That was the Chariots of Fire influence. That was that collection. So he was born almost on this day. Well, what is today? Today March 1. He was born on March 3, 1940, and he died May 30, 1986. He was 46 years old.

[35:55] Meg: That's heartbreaking.

[35:56] Jessica: And he was born in Portsmouth, Virginia, and he died in Manhattan. Here's what I remembered about Perry.

[36:03] Meg: A contemporary of my parents.

[36:05] Jessica: Yes. What I remember about Perry Ellis, and there are so many clothing brands at the time, like, to my mind, Anne Klein falls into this category. They were new American sportswear.

[36:19] Meg: Yes.

[36:19] Jessica: Right. And it was this kind of like and I think it was very 1920s influence because it was a lot of, like it was the beginning of, like, what is casual dress up? So it wasn't like you're in your sweats, dungarees or your cocktail dress having.

[36:41] Meg: A cocktail at the side of the tennis court or something.

[36:45] Jessica: Exactly. And at the club. Right. And in fact, because I'm such a vintage fashion nut, it was actually it was a callback to the even more so the '30s. But American sportswear, there were these particular brands, and Perry Ellis was one of them. And by the time he died, it was huge. I remember feeling like it was too grown up, not for us kind of thing. But it was a huge, huge brand. Like, you could not escape it. Right.

[37:16] Meg: But I hear what you're saying. Yeah. For grown ups, not kids. And we felt like we were kids.

[37:21] Jessica: Yes. I would never have worn something that's Perry Ellis but I assumed because it was such a gigantic brand that it had been around for a really long time. What did I know? This is remarkable. This guy now, he went to William and Mary College and got a degree in business administrative.

[37:37] Meg: That's in Virginia.

[37:38] Jessica: And then he graduated from NYU with a Master's in retailing. Okay. So his whole thing initially in his career was running department stores and being a buyer and all of that stuff. And in 1978 or 1979, let's see, 1976 he presented a line of clothing for a company that he was working for. It was called Portfolio.

[38:08] Meg: They let him design it.

[38:09] Jessica: Yes. And he was a terrible artist, but he knew what people would buy. So he got a team around himself to do the stuff that he couldn't do. Smart man.

[38:21] Meg: Yeah.

[38:21] Jessica: And he knew how to identify different trends and influences and pull them together. In 1978, he launched his company, and it dominated this new field. So, anyway, so he launched this brand in '78, and it just took off like gangbusters. And it was part of this whole new American sportswear. And Ralph Lauren was part of the same world, and they were neck and neck with the success of their companies and popularity. And Donna Karan was in there as well.

[38:53] Meg: And Halston is earlier than that.

[38:55] Jessica: Halston's earlier, but he was no like this. This was also a time when he started to franchise. Calvin Klein. Calvin Klein. Same. Exactly. He was in the mix with these giant names. When we talk about fashion of the '80s, which we have many times, what are some of the hallmarks?

[39:13] Meg: Like polo shirt, puffy sleeve, big shoulders. Okay.

[39:17] Jessica: We've talked about this like the giant overcoats, the slouchiness, big shoulder pads, but like, big shoulder pads that were kind of, like, rounded. It wasn't just like the 1940, like the 1940s peaked shoulder pads were more '70s, but all of that roundedness, that was Perry Ellis. So that look that we were emulating with our giant overcoats, that was Perry Ellis, that we were mimicking and getting.

[39:44] Meg: At a thrift store or whatever.

[39:45] Jessica: Exactly. And he had been mimicking some of the Japanese designers, but making it much less angular and avant garde and making it more American. This is what he did. And everything he touched turned to gold. Absolutely everything. And he franchised fast. So to this day, the Perry Ellis brand exists as sportswear, shoes, all of that.

[40:12] Meg: They have a perfume. They must.

[40:14] Jessica: I'm sure they do. But he died in 1986. Wow. So do the math for a second. How many years did his brand exist before he died?

[40:22] Meg: When did he start?

[40:24] Jessica: '78.

[40:25] Meg: So just ten years. Less than ten years.

[40:27] Jessica: Eight years. In eight years, this guy who no one talks about anymore, revolutionized American sportswear.

[40:36] Meg: Wow.

[40:36] Jessica: So I think that's pretty amazing.

[40:38] Meg: And as a very young man.

[40:40] Jessica: Very young man. If he died when he was 46, at 38 then. His partner, his life partner became the president of the company. And here's a tragic twist. His partner died of AIDS in 1986.

[40:54] Meg: The same year.

[40:55] Jessica: The same year. And Perry Ellis died a few months later.

[40:59] Meg: Oh, gosh.

[40:59] Jessica: Yes. Very, very sad.

[41:02] Meg: So they weren't able to take care of each other.

[41:05] Jessica: No. Although, interestingly, in a way, his legacy goes on, because he was the sperm donor for his friend Barbara, and he set her and their child up in Brentwood, in LA.

[41:21] Meg: And we don't know Barbara.

[41:23] Jessica: We don't know her personally.

[41:26] Meg: We don't read about Barbara in the newspapers.

[41:29] Jessica: No, we definitely.

[41:31] Meg: She's not a Barbara that we see on People magazine or anything.

[41:34] Jessica: Correct. But when I say that the dynasty lived on, his daughter Tyler started a line of handbags in 2011. It's in the genes.

[41:45] Meg: Oh, that's lovely.

[41:47] Jessica: So even now, as we speak, the Perry Ellis brand is still growing, if you can believe it, and they're still building on the styles that he created in his eight years of working as a designer.

[42:00] Meg: Now, I have a question. I know that Diane von Furstenberg was in creative control of her brand, her company, and then she franchised, and then she took it back. And so what we see right there was a period of time where she wasn't creatively involved and now she is.

[42:19] Jessica: And we know that was why Halston also wound up having that unbelievable fall, because he got all the money and then had no, couldn't, create, no creative outlet.

[42:29] Meg: He didn't even own his own name.

[42:30] Jessica: Exactly.

[42:30] Meg: Thank God Diane von Furstenberg was able to regain control of her name and her business. And now I buy Diane von Furstenberg clothes if I can afford them, because they are incredible. I'm wondering if Perry Ellis, you said he franchised early. Did he give away creative control?

[42:48] Jessica: You know what I misspoke. I didn't mean franchised at all. Meaning that he didn't sell it to anybody.

[42:54] Meg: Okay.

[42:55] Jessica: He expanded his line.

[42:59] Meg: Into handbags and shoes and perfume, we assume. Okay, got it.

[43:02] Jessica: So I misspoke.

[43:03] Meg: Yeah.

[43:03] Jessica: I mean, and so my thought was, like, imagine if Ralph Lauren had died in 1986. Like, what would American sportswear look like? What would the brands be? What would the sspirational look be? Who knows?

[43:17] Meg: And what if Perry Ellis had lived?

[43:20] Jessica: Exactly. So that's my ongoing thing with our people who died of AIDS in the '80s in New York City, is what might have been?

[43:40] Meg: So, Jessica, I don't know if you follow this on Instagram. I'm going to forward it to you, but there is a site called AIDS Memorial, and people write in and tell stories about their friends and family and some famous people, and it's all my memories of my aunt or my uncle or my father or my best friend or my lover. It's really lovely.

[44:05] Jessica: Why don't you post that?

[44:06] Meg: Oh, I will. Yeah, for sure.

[44:08] Jessica: Others can share in this.

[44:10] Meg: Wait, show me that picture again from Perry Ellis. I loved that look.

[44:16] Jessica: Yeah, it was fabulous.

[44:18] Meg: It really, like, the full skirt and the sweater. I mean, I wouldn't necessarily belt it.

[44:23] Jessica: But by the way, there was a Perry Ellis cologne. Yes, of course. Perry Ellis knitwear. So it was this.

[44:31] Meg: Yes.

[44:32] Jessica: That's what, like a tucked in sweater.

[44:34] Meg: But look at that palette. That's very neutral.

[44:38] Jessica: Right, but you said pastel.

[44:39] Meg: This is no, I didn't say pastel. No, I said off white.

[44:43] Jessica: Well, then never you mind. And here's a Vogue Patterns. American designers Perry Ellis pattern.

[44:49] Meg: All right. My mother would look fantastic in that outfit. My mother in Perry Ellis, right?

[44:58] Jessica: Yes. Oh, look at this outfit. This is clearly what influenced Isaac. OOH.

[45:04] Meg: That color beautiful. Purple here. We're looking at pictures on a podcast. We're so bad.

[45:10] Jessica: I know, it's so ridiculous. But do post it on the Instagram. Absolutely. Particularly the purple one, because it's pretty amazing. And what's even more amazing, get this. Like, you never see anyone in stockings and pumps anymore. When was the last time you saw someone wearing pumps in the daytime? That's what's going on here. I just scrolled down to the shoes, and I'm like, oh, my God. That's right. Post this. There you go. American fashion.

[45:38] Meg: What's our tie in?

[45:40] Jessica: Okay. Central Park Five. That's a hard one.

[45:43] Meg: You said that you made assumptions about Perry Ellis.

[45:47] Jessica: I don't know. Wow, that is stretching. That's good. I was thinking this is how bad my ability to come up with something was. I was taken with the fact that you mentioned the velcro on the sneaker laces. I thought you did, because I remember.

[46:01] Meg: Those little things, and I'm like, all right, that's fashion.

[46:03] Jessica: Yeah.

[46:05] Meg: What were the sneakers again?

[46:06] Jessica: Saucony that's a really that's what we got. But that's all we have to work with. Well, happy birthday, Meg.

[46:12] Meg: Happy birthday.