James Perse was born in Los Angeles, California in 1972. James’ childhood was split between the beach, the hockey rink and the floor of his father’s innovative Los Angeles boutique, Maxfield. With Maxfield at the forefront of putting Los Angeles on the fashion map, James received an incidental education on cutting edge fashion from Europe and Asia, on modern architecture, furniture design and on the elegant and the clean-line.

Ironically, sports led James to his first foray into fashion. Obsessed with baseball caps, he could never find one that was well designed – with quality construction, shape, fabric and coloring. In 1991, James set out to make the ideal cap for Maxfield and it was not long before customers became clients – film directors ordered hats for their cast and crew and record labels bought them for tours.