Paul Frank is part rock star, part Forrest Gump. The 33-year-old designer is an artist and reluctant businessman whose quirky cartoon characters are loved by grownups who refuse to grow up. With annual sales of more than $10 million, his Newport Beach-based Paul Frank Industries Inc. is small. But the maker of women’s sportswear, accessories and household items is hot.
“There are groupies who love Paul Frank,as soon as a new collection comes in they want to be called,” said Frasier Ross, owner of Kitson, a boutique in Beverly Hills and Toronto.
Paul Frank is the odd man out of Orange County’s fashion industry. At trade shows, his designs show alongside those of local surfwear companies, though they have nothing to do with surfing. His handbags sell for around $100, but you won’t find them in high society.
It all started six years ago with Frank’s now-trademark monkey face logo. Based on a character named Julius, the caricature is an icon for hipsters, reminiscent of Harvey Ball’s yellow 1970s smiley face. Frank’s designs incorporate cartoon animals as well punk rock, 1960s mod and trashy chic ’70s images. His T-shirts, pajamas, purses and other items are a mix of contemporary fashion and retro nostalgia.
“It’s got the broadest appeal of anything I have ever seen,” gushes Jennifer Kaufman, operator of an upscale accessories boutique under her name at the Beverly Center. “I literally have 9-year-olds to 85-year-olds buy it. Everybody likes it.”
Frank’s designs are found in boutiques as well as at Nordstrom, Fred Segal and even Harrods in London. But Frank said his work hasn’t always been an instant hit with retailers.
“They will say ‘Paul’s got kooky ideas, but we have come a long way on these kooky ideas so maybe it’s not so kooky,'” Frank said.
Frank co-founded his company six years ago with Ryan Heuser, a former Mossimo Inc. employee who is president of Paul Frank Industries, and John Oswald, the company’s chief executive officer.
“This company was started not to be like those corporate companies on the stock market,” Heuser said. “We make things from the heart and have made things for our friends.”
But Paul Frank is growing. Sales last year doubled from $5 million in 1999. This year, company officials project revenue to grow 40%.
The company doesn’t even have a marketing budget, but that didn’t stop trade publication Brandweek from hailing Frank as one of 10 young individuals under 40 in its 2001 Marketers of the Next Generation edition in March.
Paul Frank counts 30 employees, 25 worldwide sales representatives and distributors in Japan, Taiwan, Europe, Canada and Australia. About a year ago, the company struck a licensing deal with Melbourne’s Diehard Pty Ltd. to make products Down Under.
Paul Frank got its start in accessories and has expanded into junior’s apparel, home furnishings and even retail stores, including one at its Newport Beach headquarters, another in San Francisco and, soon, Tokyo, New York and Los Angeles. The company also is eyeing men’s wear.
A few months ago, Paul Frank struck up a venture with Newport Beach-based Baum Vision to produce a line of sunglasses.
The company also recently signed a deal with Richardson, Texas-based Fossil Inc. to produce an expanded line of watches under the Paul Frank label. A year ago, Paul Frank launched its own watches.
“We are starting with a small limited edition run we’ll send to fashion editors that will be signed by Paul Frank,” Heuser said. “There will be 12 to 15 models for Christmas, but it will grow to a full collection ranging from watches to anything with a time component, such as desk and wall clocks.”
Frank, the company’s creative director, has always moved slowly. Just last year, he moved out of his parents’ house in Huntington Beach to a duplex in Belmont Heights.
“I was lucky that my parents let me live at home so long,” Frank said. “Some kids get money or cars. I got a place to live and there was never any hurry to get a full-time job. Otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to take classes, I wouldn’t have had time to sew and play guitar. My parents didn’t push.”
Frank met Heuser in the mid-1990s at a coffee shop in Huntington Beach that used to be next to the Taxi newsstand where Frank peddled newspapers and magazines.
“We just started talking about why companies don’t make cool socks for men with stripes and bright colors,” Heuser said. “No one was really doing that and we thought, ‘Gosh I wish someone would do something cool.'”
Ryan was working for Mossimo Inc. in Irvine handling public relations for the designer’s men’s division, where he developed industry contacts. Heuser encouraged Frank to take his designs to Mossimo’s head accessories designer. Frank did so, but the designer never called him back.
“Ryan said ‘don’t get discouraged, start your own company,'” Frank recalled.
Heuser eventually took a leap of faith and invested $5,000 to buy vinyl materials, stickers and a business license to start Paul Frank Industries.
“We were two guys who didn’t know what they were doing, but we couldn’t make these wallets fast enough,” Heuser said. “We would run out of money and scrounge from our family members.”
But Frank and Heuser kept running out of money. Heuser’s roommate’s boyfriend, John Oswald, a venture capitalist who worked for a San Diego firm, offered his help. Soon the three were partners building their first trade show booth to debut their accessories at the Action Sports Retailer Trade Show in San Diego in 1998.
The Paul Frank booth was swamped with customers all three days of the trade show. One Japanese importer took notice and became an investor and silent partner.
“We came back from that trade show with orders and no capital to make the line,” Heuser said. “We had paper in hand, but the banks wouldn’t lend us any money. If not for (the silent partner) we would not be sitting here now.”
This year, the trio plans to buy out their Japanese partner’s 20% stake, Heuser said.
Indeed, the relationship among Frank, Heuser and Oswald has affected more than their business. Heuser and Oswald both are fitness buffs. Frank likes eating Moon Pies and drinking Cokes.
“But now I see him with a jug of water and he’s eating healthier,” Heuser said.
When Frank’s not frantically grinding on his classic red Moserite Ventures guitar in his band The Moseleys, he’s creating logo characters befitting the youthful image of Paul Frank.
Discouraged by his efforts to break into the music industry, Frank took to developing his talent as an artist while he and his band drummed up a following in the local music scene.
“I used to want to be a rock star, but that was before I got into sewing,” Frank said.
The Moseleys are a flashback to the 1960s mod era. Frank and other band members dress in tight plaid bellbottoms, white shirts and black ties, pageboy wigs and faux fur coats.
By day, Frank sports a more laid back look in a simple short-sleeved shirt, black pants and black sneakers. His assistant, Stacia Hanley, sits at a desk beside him. Nearby, nine-month-old Jasper, Frank’s new Weimaraner puppy, occupies an orange couch.
Floor-to-ceiling shelves stocked with memorabilia and toys Frank has collected over the years surround the three. The items range from a Colonel Sanders piggy bank to the original Singer sewing machine his parents bought him for his 25th birthday.
“He’s like a little boy,that’s how we see him,” said Gay W. Lam, co-owner of Wishbone, a San Francisco boutique that sells Paul Frank products. “He’s a big kid with endless childlike wonder and creativity.”
In an industry where most companies start with apparel and move into the accessories business, Paul Frank took the opposite track.
Frank’s first handbag with a picture of a poodle with furry legs on it was modeled after a tiny plastic one that belonged to his girlfriend’s Barbie doll.
Using cardboard from a box of Meaty Bone dog biscuits, plastic one-liter Coke bottles and scrap automotive upholstery, Frank practiced his craft by customizing wallets, watchbands and purses for his friends in the early days.
He drew inspiration from everything from sock monkeys and other toys to architect logos and 1960s graphics used on city signs.
“I worked at a newsstand so I didn’t have a lot to do, so I would sit there and draw and flip through magazines,” said Frank, pulling out his original black sketchbook from a shelf behind his desk.
Frank studied model making, perspective drawing and sewing at Orange Coast College. His first products were wallets with his band’s name on them that he handed out to patrons at clubs they played.
“I didn’t know it would be this successful, but I knew I could make people happy,” he said. n
