Modern Amusement Founder Launches Generic Youth Label
Jeff Yokoyama, founder of Santa Monica, Calif.–based Modern Amusement, wanted his 15-year-old daughter, Coco, to get a job this summer. Instead of marching her to the nearest mall, he suggested she write a business plan.
Her idea was so good that Yokoyama turned it into a label called Generic Youth with the owners of Paul Frank Industries, based in Costa Mesa, Calif. On Dec. 7, Yokoyama opened a Generic Youth boutique at 2602 Avon St. in Newport Beach, Calif.
The collection concentrates on T-shirts and fleece with price points ranging from $35 for a Tshirt to $90 for fleece. The T-shirts feature art-driven designs, and the fleece jackets have a slim fit.
All of the fleece jackets feature details such as house keys on zipper pulls. Vintage scarves are sewn on the hoods of the girls’ fleece. Guys’ fleece jackets feature appliqueacute;s and a wallpaper print.
Generic Youth will be initially run as a nontraditional business. It has no sales representatives. It has no formal plans for distribution except to stock the 900-square-foot boutique, formerly a pawnshop. New designs might be introduced every six weeks, said Ryan Heuser, co-founder and president of Paul Frank Industries. “We thought: What are the rules of Paul Frank, what are the rules of Modern Amusement, and let’s break them,” Heuser said of the experimental feel of the new company.
Yokoyama left Modern Amusement at the beginning of the summer, months after Mossimo Giannulli purchased the company. He thought his daughter’s idea might have potential after many of her friends requested a T-shirt that was one of the results of her business plan.
He cold-called Heuser during the summer to tell him about his idea and request funding and other collaborative help. Paul Frank designers Juan Mendez and Ben Soto worked on Generic Youth’s first collection, and the company set up temporary offices in Paul Frank Industries’ headquarters.
Yokoyama said Coco, a high school sophomore, is the inspiration behind the company, but it’s not going to turn into a full-time job for her yet. Her duties at Generic Youth will probably entail nothing more than working at the shop a couple of days each week. —Andrew Asch
