
By Tiffany Chow
You would be hard-pressed to find anybody who isn't familiar with the name Paul Frank. The clothing company known well for its uniquely fun designs, broad range of inspired products, and Julius the monkey has quickly made its name known throughout the world and with each new day continues to expand and progress. What most are not familiar with, though, are Paul Frank Industries' humble and honest beginnings, the integrity and sincerity of the company's owner, creator, and namesake, and the story behind it all.
Paul Frank himself took a few moments out of his extremely busy day to talk with us about the company.
SKRATCH: Tell us about the beginning of Paul
Frank Industries. What made you want to start such a unique, fun,
and innovative
company?
PAUL FRANK: It wasn't like I wanted to start a company; it was
about a need for things that no one else had. It's always been
about being
unique. We liked old music, like The Who and mod stuff, so we
wanted to dress like that. We used to wear thrift-store clothes
in the
'80s, and people used to make fun of us. It's always about having
something
that other people don't, so making things is another way to do
that. In the '90s, people started wearing vintage clothes because
of Kurt
Cobain and stuff, so in order to be different, I went and got
a sewing machine. Sewing clothes wasn't really something I wanted
to do that
bad, so mostly I just brought out the machine to sew patches
on
sweaters. I had this orange vinyl, and I thought "Wow, this might be a cool
wallet." At the time I was an art student at OCC, so I was using
what I was learning in my art classes. My friends and their bands were
all creative and artistic; they were painting and sculpting. But I
made a wallet in my room, and from that day on everyone wanted a custom-made
wallet or a guitar strap or a watch band or a backpack—so
I learned how to make all those things myself. People think I
started a company
and pasted my name on a wallet. That's not what I did. I make
things. Like Jesse James makes choppers, I make wallets. It's
like Paul Frank's
Monster Garage.
SKRATCH: So when did it turn into a company?
PF: About a year or two later. There was such a demand. Literally,
I would get up and sew, then go to work, then come home and
sew some more, and then go to work at night and sell stuff
that I
made. I
knew this was good. I knew I was creative and that what I made
was really
cool and really unique. My friend Ryan tried to get me a job
at Mossimo, but the lady there wouldn't have anything to do
with me
because she
didn't even know how to sew. So Ryan said, "Why don't you just
do this?" And I said, "Well, I don't have any money." So
he went and got some money from his step-mom. We wanted to
do it really legit, so we went and got a business license and
a resale number. So,
basically, we started from scratch.
SKRATCH: So you clearly did not have any aspirations
of PFI becoming what it has today. How does it feel now that it has
completely
blown up?
PF: It's cool when I see people jogging or [at] Disneyland
wearing one of my shirts; I still get really excited. It's
cool because
I don't know that person, and they went and actually bought
that at
a store.
It's like watching your hair grow. You don't really see it
growing, it's just longer someday and you think, "Oh, I need a haircut!" We
offer so many different products…I don't really have
time to sit back and dwell on it. You can never fully appreciate
your own fame
or success, because you're in it. What's cool about success
and seeing it get so big is that you realize what you're
good at and what you're
not good at. You start to feel a confidence and a comfort;
you know what works and what doesn't.
SKRATCH: The corporate offices are bright and
right by the ocean in Orange County. How do you think the location
reflects
the
personality of the company?
PF: It wasn't on purpose that we wanted to be so close
to the ocean, it just happened that way. See, that's the
thing:
a
lot of this
stuff just happened. It just happened that I felt like
sewing a wallet,
and it was cool and other people wanted one. It just so
happened that our
building ended up being so close to the beach. But other
things are intentional, like painting the building those
bright colors.
My elementary
school was the same colors. I didn't realize it for awhile.
I didn't know why I liked those colors so much. I think
that's why, though.
I grew up in the '70s. In 1972, I started going to this
elementary school called Sunview in Huntington Beach. Part
of the school
was a rusty orange, one building was light blue, and one
building was
a goldish
yellow—and those are my main colors. I grew up in
those buildings that were made in the mid- to late-'60s,
so I wanted our corporate
building to reflect that attitude and some of our other
aesthetics. That's another thing: we have our own library
of aesthetics now. Whether
it's a reception office or our offices or our stores, I
try to repeat things, like shapes and colors. I always
refer to Disneyland. It's
the best example of continuity there ever was. Even the
churro cart by the Matterhorn is painted in Matterhorn
lettering, so you have this
Mexican dessert, but it's painted in this Matterhorn lettering.
It doesn't make sense, but it's continuity. My influences
aren't clothing
designers at all: my real influences are the industrial
designers, like whoever designs schools, desks, chairs,
office furniture, bicycles,
cars, blenders, toasters from the '40s through '60s, stuff
like public buildings....
SKRATCH: Paul Frank has become a sort of icon
for many kids in the indie-rock music scene. Was this planned?
PF: I think it all goes back to designing things that
I think are unique. I wouldn't call myself indie, but
I would
be
or I am. What
IS indie?
What IS emo? I was wearing a Western shirt and horn-rimmed
glasses before there was a thing called indie or emo.
I don't know what
that means exactly, but I know that I always had an artistic
flare. With
indie and emo, you're wearing older clothes, sneakers
and jeans. It just happened to be that we were already
wearing
stuff like
that because
of music, so all this is based on music. [When I was
in a mod band, we] wanted to sound like The Who, The
Rolling
Stones,
and The Velvet
Underground, so whatever The Velvet Underground or The
Who was wearing, we were wearing, too. Because Paul wears
that
kind of
stuff, he designs
that kind of stuff, so everybody that is into that music
scene
likes that kind of stuff, too, so they buy my stuff.
I don't GO after these
people like the Gap or some other big corporate company.
They try to go after that—I already AM that. I hope I didn't just give away
a big secret. It's not like I try. It just happens to be that cool
bands like Pretty Girls Make Graves or Alkaline Trio have the similar
interests, like skulls, hearts, black, and rock 'n' roll. That's how
I met all my cool friends: by playing music. Just think: if I had never
learned how to play the guitar, I would be working at some warehouse
somewhere driving a forklift. I was terribly shy, and music got me
out there. It was like a fork in the road. What if I didn't take the
fork of music? I would just be a normal person and none of this would
have happened. See, music is responsible for so many things. People
make babies to music. People take drugs to music. It's all about music.
Like The Beach Boys said, "Add some music to your
day."
SKRATCH: It can definitely be argued that the
reason the music scene has so readily adopted Paul Frank is
because
of your
background. But it could also be attributed to the
huge amount of collaborations
you've
done with major names in the music industry. From Bad
Religion to
Radiohead, from The Vandals to Alkaline Trio, from
the Coachella Festival to KROQ.
How did these collaborations come about? What inspired
the first collaboration in 1999 with The Aquabats?
PF: We used to play with them back in '93 or '94. I
liked them because they wore their own costumes. I
designed
this belt
for them to wear.
It just happens to be that if you're in a band, you
have other friends in bands. It's like "Birds of a feather flock together." My
best friend, his wife is Warren's sister from The Vandals—but
that's not how we got to do stuff with them. It just
happens to be that Warren started wearing my T-shirts
before my best friend Chris
met his sister. I knew Scurvy would have this appeal
to punk, rockabilly, or gothic kids. There's always
a fashion of people like the punk girl
or the emo girl. I just know that certain things would
cross over to those fashions. Some things just stay
cool, timeless, classic. A lot
of this stuff just happens.
SKRATCH: The music scene in Orange County is
quite possibly one of the most prolific and productive scenes
in any
other area
in the
United States. What role do you think Paul Frank
plays in that?
PF: It goes back to why our building is where it
is. There's a definite thing about growing up in
Huntington
Beach.
I don't know
what it
is, but for some reason a lot of things start in
California. It takes California
to make a lot of things cool. California was one
of the last states to be filled in, but we have it
all
here.
We can go
surfing and
snowboarding in the same day if we want to! There
must be a reason why. Because
we're closer to the beach, the kids here are much
cooler. Is it cooler to say you have a 714 area code
or a 909
area code?
714—that's
right. If someone can figure out why that is, they'd
probably make a lot of money.
SKRATCH: There is definitely uniqueness about
PFI that draws many people in. What do you think is the
most
significant aspect of
PFI that sets
it apart?
PF: I know exactly what it is: it's the fact that
we use humor, sarcasm. People see the characters
and assume
they're
happy,
but if you look
at Julius's face, that's not a smile, it's a smirk.
And Worry Bear is worried, and Scurvy's sad because
he used
to be a
pirate and
now he's doomed to be on a liquor bottle forever.
I drew Worry Bear on
a plane. That's the difference between me and a
major company. They see Worry Bear and they say, "Oh, there's a bear on a shirt. We
should put a bear on a shirt"—and then they wonder why they
don't sell very well. I was flying on an airplane, and I got a little
scared and worried, and so I drew Worry Bear. That's something that
really bugs me. People see me and they say, "Oh you're the monkey
guy." It's more than that! People don't know
that I drew Julius for my girlfriend that and there's
a story behind it or that the giraffe
was originally a costume for the monkey. Nobody
knows that. People think that I just buy a bunch
of purses and slap a monkey's face on
it. People don't realize that we hand-make every
single product before we ship it off to manufacturers.
Everything is hand-made first right
here in the offices.
SKRATCH: Finally, what do you see in the future
of Paul Frank Industries?
PF: I definitely would like my cartoons to become
real cartoons on TV, so we're working on that
right now.
I also would like
to open
more of my own stores. I really enjoy designing
them and the furniture and
the light fixtures and everything. I have a lot
of fun doing that. And what's really sad is how
many
boutiques are closing
down. You
barely see any boutiques anymore. Everyone buys
things from Urban Outfitters
and think that it's a boutique, but it's not,
really. But everyone goes to Urban Outfitters
and doesn't
go to the
little hole
in the wall, and then it closes up. It's really
scary to think about
that,
because
eventually all those major stores are going to
start controlling what people buy and what they
should
like, and that's really
scary.
Check out some of Paul Frank's products, art, and cartoons at his Website www.paulfrank.com.