New York Fashion Week: Paul Frank Industries Circus Jumble

When it comes to mixing fun and fashion, few brands (let alone kids’ brands) capture the perfect balance quite like Paul Frank Industries. Long known for bright colors and quirky tees emblazoned with the likeness of the Julius the Monkey character, the brand holds a place in the hearts of fashion-forward folk of all ages. So it’s fitting that the brand would call their new spring/summer 2016 kids’ collection Circus Jumble.

The Circus Jumble collection made its debut via a whimsical runway show at Hudson Mercantile on the first night of New York Fashion Week, which was attended by a slew of models, moms, and celebrity moguls–including super model Coco Rocha and her baby daughter Ioni (attending her first fashion show), and stylist and designer Rachel Zoe and her family.

The Circus Jumble collection showed a new sportier and sleeker look for Paul Frank Industries. “I think the original roots of Paul Frank are really bold colors, so we decided to take a spin on that,” explains the brand’s new creative director, Stan Wan, noting that he was really excited about the black-and-gold looks in the collection. “I think people will be pleasantly surprised in how we’re taking [Paul Frank Industries] from being a traditional t-shirt business and elevating it and doing something that’s fashion.”

The eye-catching metallics and jungle-themed and animal-print graphics also caught the eye of celeb mom Coco Rocha (who joked that she was at the show as her baby’s “plus one”). “It frustrates me, with a newborn, when people think that girls need to wear pink and boys have to wear blue. Anytime I put [Ioni] in a gray or a blue or a green, people get so confused as to why! So this [collection] was perfect—black, white, gold,” she says as we caught up with her backstage after the show. “And it’s cute! We don’t really need to dress [children] up as dolls anymore. That was one moment in time, and now I feel like we can dress them as mini-us—if we’re fashionable people, we’ll have fashionable kids.”

Speaking of fashionable kids, in addition to the runway show, the event also opened up into a lively party for kids of all ages with music by DJ Fulano, snacks of cotton candy, popcorn, Ample Hills Creamery ice cream, and crisped rice sweets from Treat House, as well as entertainment by aerialists, contortionists, and stilts walkers.

Check out our fave moments from the show in the slide show below! And to learn more about Paul Frank Industries, visit paulfrank.com!