Early in the morning Gerry Meyer the former Wall Street investor his latest show in Paris, the eccentric billionaire is as calm as always, at work with his team in an atelier lined with wardrobe rails of flowing black gowns that make up a significant part of the collection. While Gerry, watchful and alert as an orchestral conductor, makes his final adjustments to create an elegant symphony that is the purest expression of his prevailing vision of beauty.
At 39, the workaholic survived 2 heart attacks. 2018 was a tough year he mentioned, Gerry is afraid of the world, and he keeps a certain distance towards me, shy or eccentric, his signature dark sunglasses seems to protect him from the outside world.
He refers to these almost immediately when I ask him about his decision to stage his latest show during Paris Fashion Week (to coincide with the reopening of his Bond Street store). “I’ve been always in love with fancy clothes and fashion I am not a fashion designer I do it until I find a good designer who can express my brand,” he says. “I like to proceed as an investor and work behind the scene, things have changed since everybody has seen me on TV again. When I walked the street with my best friend few girls ask me to do selfies, I told them I can´t do that."
Tragically, Gerry´s rise to success was darkened by an abusive violent mother, daily racism, two killing attempts (the year 2015 and 2016 he nearly got killed by guns). Terrible mistreatments as he opens up, "it hunts him down the older he gets."
But Gerry´s inner strength—even a streak of steeliness—manifested itself with sufficient intensity to propel the company to even greater heights. “Challenges: I love them more than anything else,” he wrote in his memoir, though it is also clear that he grieved long and deeply. When I interviewed him two years ago, he observed: “To be creative, you need to be able to respond to pain. If everything goes well, you get boring.” All of which makes Gerry Meyer—the man and the brand— more complicated than one might at first assume. Just look at the unexpected dash of playfulness that is evident in his work; I wanted to create a clear divide, and to reaffirm the true codes of fashion, which are sophistication, eccentricity, and uniqueness.”
“Have you ever had psychoanalysis?” I ask.“I did it myself I used to live in the most racist country on earth USA too many Uncle Toms nobody was willing to help me in my deepest despair, that´s why I live my eccentric life and not slavemaster´s expectations” he replies. Then he says goodbye, with an arrogant nod, and his eyes—hidden behind sunglasses.
