The Fashion Industry Lied About How Perry Ellis Died - Here's Why

On May 30, 1986, one of America's most influential fashion designers died at forty-six years old. His company said it was encephalitis. The newspapers printed it. And an entire industry exhaled - because nobody had to say the word AIDS. In this episode, we tell the full story of Perry Ellis, his partner Laughlin Barker, and the industry-wide conspiracy of silence that had a body count far beyond two men.

Perry Ellis revolutionized American fashion by understanding something most designers didn't - that women wanted clothes that felt like them. Oversized sweaters, earth tones, natural fibers, the famous slouch look. He won eight Coty Awards between 1979 and 1984. His wholesale revenues climbed to $260 million by 1986. He was as big as Calvin Klein, as big as Ralph Lauren. And he was doing it all alongside the love of his life, Laughlin Barker - romantic, domestic, professional partners in every sense, their relationship an open secret in an industry that knew and said nothing publicly.

This episode traces the devastation that followed when AIDS arrived. Laughlin died on January 2, 1986. His New York Times obituary said lung cancer - not Kaposi's sarcoma, not AIDS. Lung cancer, at thirty-seven. Five months later, Perry died too. His spokesperson refused to say the word AIDS. It took until 1993 - seven years - for the Associated Press to explicitly list Perry Ellis among AIDS victims. Seven years to print what everyone already knew.

But this isn't just a story about two men. The fashion industry of the 1980s was built by queer people - its entire creative engine. And when AIDS started killing that engine, the industry turned its back because acknowledging AIDS meant acknowledging queerness, and acknowledging queerness threatened the brands selling aspirational fantasy to Middle America. The closet wasn't just personal. It was a business model. This episode asks what we've actually learned since then - and what it would look like to truly honor Perry Ellis's legacy.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

What happens when an entire industry agrees to lie? Hi there, I'm Chris with a K and welcome back to this week in Queer History, where we find hope-filled, inspirational, and strategic moments from queer history that we can use today. On May 30th, 1986, one of America's most influential fashion designers died at 46 years old. His company said it was encephalitis. The newspapers printed it, and an entire industry exhaled because nobody had to say the word AIDS. This is the story of Perry Ellis, and it's a story about what silence costs. This week and clear history. Stories told with love and gleam. Perry Edwin Ellis was born March 3rd, 1940, in Portsmouth, Virginia. His dad worked in Norfolk's Navy dockyards and owned a fuel oil business. Comfortable, middle class, nothing flashy. Perry graduated from the College of William and Mary in 1961 with a business degree, served in the Coast Guard Reserve to avoid the draft, and then earned a master's in retailing from NYU in 1963. That's not exactly what you would expect from a fashion icon, but Perry Ellis, he understood something most designers didn't. He started as a sportswear buyer at Miller and Rhodes in Richmond, and by the mid-70s, he was designing for the Vera companies. And in November 1976, he debuted his first women's sportswear line called Portfolio. The fashion press lost its mind. American women were stuck between frumpy practical wear and European couture knockoffs. Ellis gave them something radical, clothes that felt like them, oversized sweaters in rough-hewn textures, earthy tones, natural fibers, loose shapes. He called it the slouch look. Fashion critics compared him to Kenzo Takata, but Ellis made it American. He made casual look expensive and expensive look fun. By 1978, Manhattan Industries was backing his own label, Perry Ellis Sportswear. He won eight Cody Awards between 1979 and 1984. And in 1982, he won the CFDA's Designer of the Year. His wholesale revenues climbed from $60 million in the early 80s to $260 million in 1986. He was as big as Calvin Klein, as big as Ralph Loren. And he believed, his words, that fashion dies when you take it too seriously. Perry Ellis served as president of the Council of Fashion Designers of America from 1984 to 1986. He had 23 licenses. He partnered with Levi Strauss to launch Perry Ellis America. The man wasn't just designing clothes, he was building an empire. And all the while, he was doing it alongside the love of his life. In 1981, Perry began a relationship with Laughlin Barker, an attorney with a law degree from Georgetown. Ellis made Barker president of the licensing division. And it wasn't just nepotism. Barker was sharp, strategic, and turned licensing into a revenue engine. Biographer Jonathan Moore wrote that it was Laughlin's love, friendship, advice, and business acumen that propelled Perry into the elite class of world-class designers. They were partners in every sense: romantic, domestic, professional. But like so many queer love stories in the 80s, theirs was an open secret. Everyone in the industry knew, but nobody said it publicly. That was the deal. And then, AIDS came. By October 1985, Perry appeared at the end of his fall show, visibly gaunt, looking far older than 45. Rumors spread, and he denied everything. In December, he passed out in the receiving line at a party at the Costume Institute. Meanwhile, Lachlan was undergoing chemotherapy for Kaposi's sarcoma, one of the defining cancers of the AIDS crisis. On January 2nd, 1986, Lachlan Barker died. He was 37 years old. The New York Times obituary said lung cancer. Not Kaposi sarcoma. Not AIDS, lung cancer. At 37. Perry was shattered and he was already dying. By May, viral encephalitis had paralyzed one side of his face. But on May 8th, 1986, he insisted on presenting his fall collection. At the end of the show, the designer traditionally walks down the runway for a final bow. Perry tried, but he was so weak that two assistants had to hold him upright as he made his way down the catwalk. It was his last public appearance. He slipped into a coma and died on May 30th, 1986, at the New York Hospital, Cornell Medical Center. His spokesperson told the press, those were Perry's wishes, and he refused to say the word AIDS. And then the cover-up machine kicked into gear. Most major newspapers attributed his death solely to encephalitis. The New York Times mentioned neither AIDS nor Nachlin Barker's death five months earlier. A CDC spokesperson was quoted saying encephalitis wasn't one of the diseases that strikes AIDS patients, which was technically misleading because encephalitis was frequently caused by opportunistic infections in people with AIDS. It was one of the ways that AIDS killed you. It took until August 1986 for New York magazine to publish Patricia Morris Rowe's investigation. She interviewed 52 people and had come to the conclusion that it seems likely that Ellis had died of AIDS. And it wasn't until 1993, seven years later, that the Associated Press explicitly listed Perry Ellis among better-known AIDS victims. Seven years for a major outlet to print what everyone already knew. But here's what makes the silence so much worse. The fashion industry in the 1980s was built by queer people. Designers, stylists, photographers, models, makeup artists. The creative engine of fashion was overwhelmingly LGBTQ. And when AIDS started killing that engine, the industry turned its back. There was no mass mobilization, no institutional fundraising, because acknowledging AIDS meant acknowledging queerness. And acknowledging queerness meant threatening the brands that sold the aspirational fantasy to Middle America. A closed closet door wasn't just personal, it was a part of the fashion industry's business model. Jonathan Moore, who wrote Ellis' biography in 1988, faced such intense pushback that he became unemployed in fashion journalism. He explained the industry's terror. What happened when a customer buying Perry Ellis jeans discovers that the designer was gay? What happens to the stock price? Cells did drop temporarily after Ellis' death, and the fear was economic. It was ruthless. Perry Ellis wasn't the only one erased during this time. Rock Hudson only disclosed his AIDS diagnosis in July 1985 because he was visibly dying in a Paris hospital. Liberacci's camp claimed that he died from a watermelon diet until the coroner confirmed AIDS. Death after death attributed to pneumonia or cancer, anything but the truth. And that erasure had a body count beyond just the individuals who had died of AIDS. Doctors underreported AIDS deaths. Without accurate data, public health policy suffered. The silence didn't protect anyone, it killed more people. A huge thank you to the members that you see on screen right now. Your support makes this all possible. And it helps me keep digging through archives and sharing the queer history that inspires us. If you'd like to join them, there's a link up above and in the description down below. And if membership isn't in your budget right now, no worries. Subscribing and hitting the bell helps more than you know. Most of all, thank you for being here. As I was learning all of this, it hit me in a way that I wasn't expecting. I was a bit too young to live through the worst part of the AIDS crisis. I mean, I knew about it, but all I knew about Perry Ellis growing up was that it was really preppy, very upper class business, but comfortable. And I got ham-me-downs from my uncles, and I definitely wore them, and I had no idea what had been buried with that label. And I have to be honest here because I am torn about this whole thing. There's a part of me that believes so strongly in the right to keep your health private, that it's yours and it no one has to know it. And Perry Ellis was a human being just like us, going through something that was really devastating. He'd lost the love of his life and he was facing his own mortality. So who am I to say that he owed all of us or them at that time any disclosure of that? But on the other side, he was one of the most visible names in American fashion. The brand was mainstream. And if Perry Ellis, the person, not just the label, had been able to speak openly, I mean, imagine what that could have done. The attention at that time, the funding, the conversations that might have happened instead of the silence. And that that's where there's an anger in me because it wasn't just Perry choosing this privacy. It was an industry protecting its bottom line, money. Companies were suppressing the truth to preserve profits. And that's not a personal choice. That's that's coercion dressed up as discretion. So I looked around at where we're at today. Tim Cook came out as a gay in 2014, and he was the first openly gay CEO of a Fortune 500 company. Sam Altman has been open about being gay throughout his career. Beth Ford became the first openly gay woman to lead a Fortune 500 company when she took over Landa Lakes in 2018. And that's real progress, and that matters. But it keeps coming up for me. Do we see their partners at gallas the way we see straight CEOs spouses in Forbes profiles? Do they talk about their families on corporate calls the same way? And honestly, I'm not sure. And I hope that I'm wrong, but there's a part of me that doesn't seem to feel it's as equal as it should be. Because the world I want to live in celebrates people for who they are. The diversity, the difference, those things make us stronger. And if we're still suppressing that for profits and optics, then we haven't learned what Perry Ellis's silence should have taught us. And his brand is still out there. You can buy Perry Ellis' ties or pants at Macy's, but the company uses his name without telling his story. And that might be the final erasure, stripping away who he was from the empire he built. So here's what I want you to take away from all of this. Perry Ellis made American fashion look like America. He gave us the oversized boyfriend blazer, the chunky sweater, and the idea that fashion should be joyful. He loved deeply, lost everything, and then the world couldn't even let him be mourned, honestly. And we can't change what happened in 1986, but we can refuse to repeat it. We can name our people, we can tell our stories, and we can demand that visibility isn't just a rainbow logo in June, but a year-round, full-throated, unapologetic celebration of who we are. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this one. Please drop a comment below and let me know how this story hits you. And if you want to go deeper and have some more fun, queer history, check out this video that's popping up right over here. And you can also join our email list. It's a link up above and down below. We share more history, we have conversations, we make connections. It's a great place that we can meet each other off of the other social media platforms just in case things get a little weird. We always have a place that's ours. Until next time, stay strong, stay bold, and keep making history.