Paul Frank Collaborates With Four Native American Designers

That little monkey Julius from the Paul Frank label is going native.

The Los Angeles label, which has been around since 1997, is collaborating with four Native American designers who have come up with some Southwestern looks for the company. They will be unveiled this Friday at a panel discussion scheduled at the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts in Santa Fe, N.M.

The museum's director, Patsy Phillips, will introduce the panel speakers who will be addressing "Beyond the Tribal Trend: Developing Proactive Native American Collaboration in Fashion."

After the panel, each of the designers will present their products and talk about their inspiration for the collaboration. The designers are Louie Gong of Eighth Generation, Autumn Dawn Gomez of The Soft Museum, Candace Halcro of Brownbeaded and Dustin Martin of SOLO.

The Native American collections include a printed tote, pillow and throw blanket by Gong, five collections of Hama bead jewelry by Gomez, authentic Paul Frank hand-beaded sunglasses by Halcro and a variety of T-shirts, tanks and bandanas by Martin.