Why Every Cool Actor In Hollywood Is Wearing PALY

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The PALY era is here! Whether you realize it or not, you’ve likely seen the cult LA brand PALY worn by some of your favorite actors, musicians, and athletes like Jacob Elordi, Bad Bunny, Hudson Williams, and Stefon Diggs. THE DAILY recently caught up with PALY founders James Franco and Kyle Lindgren to find out how they created the line, what their design process is like, and what their growing list of fans can expect from their new SS26 collection and campaign.  INTERVIEW BY HUNTER KOHL

The two of you are longtime friends. How long into the friendship did it take for you two to come up with the idea for PALY? Rumor has it that the origin involved weekly The Bachelor viewings with friends. True?
James Franco: Yeah, we were buddies for 5 or 6 years before PALY. I was around when Kyle decided he hated business school and decided on fashion school. He graduated top of his class, got a job at FA, and moved up very quickly. During COVID, I read the critic Jerry Saltz’s book, How to Be an Artist, and one of the chapters suggested you draw every day, and I hadn’t been making art for a while, so I took his advice and drew every day. During COVID my girlfriend and I started watching The Bachelor, and our friend group had a weekly Bachelor viewing party, and that’s when I would draw. I started drawing a lot of old Hollywood stars. Kyle asked me to draw on some denim jackets, and then everyone asked me to. Next, we tried putting images on shirts and hoodies. Kyle cut the materials and the cut, and we had our friends vote on their favorite designs. Then we tried Paris Fashion Week, selling our stuff from a hotel room.

Congratulations on PALY’s SS26 collection being released this month. Can you talk about the inspiration for the collection and where the title “Dr. Blue in Room 32” came from?
Kyle Lindgren: While I was doing research for the collection I came across codes that hotel staff use to identify emergencies on the property so as not to alert guests. i.e. Dr. Blue in Room X means medical emergency in Room X. I wanted to use the title: Dr. Blue in Bungalow 2 but technically that would have been historically inaccurate because Belushi overdosed in Bungalow 3 [at Chateau Marmont.] Henceforth, I settled on 32 to represent the room at the Alta Cienega Motel where Jim Morrison stayed for some time.
Franco: The new collection is about hotels and motels and all the wild stuff that happens in and around them. Lots of wild Hollywood stories in hotels, on the road, or hiding out. Room 32 was the Jim Morrison room at the old Alta Cienega hotel in West Hollywood. The Doors’ office was right next to the hotel, under where the regular Kardashian billboard is today. Jim Morrison wandered all around this area, drunk. Up to the Whiskey Ago-go (where their fame started as the house band) and over to a bar called The Phone Booth. Mick Jagger visited Jim in this hotel one time to talk about the way Jim did things on stage. Two legends in room 32.

The campaign stars musician Landon Barker and model Skyla Sanders, who are both children of Hollywood figures. Can you tell us about this collaboration and what it was like capturing it?
Lindgren: Shooting with Landon and Skyla was such a breeze. It was one of those shoots where we almost had no time to prep beforehand because the entire team was absolutely scrambling to try and finish the collection on time. We literally had a handful of finished styles getting delivered to the set while we were still shooting. We styled it on the fly with my team, and I was just building outfits by laying the garments on the ground and voting for our favorite looks. It honestly could have been such a disaster, but it came out perfectly, and they both wore the clothes so well.  We love this concept of blending old Hollywood with the newer generation of Hollywood. Fashion is very cyclic, and it’s fascinating to me how Hollywood is also a bit of a cycle. Granted, it is a much more nefarious cycle, i.e., someone’s dream is achieved, the dream brings unexpected tribulations, the individual spirals out of control and bottoms out, a new individual sees that person as their hero and works to achieve that level of success, and it all starts over again. 

Do either of you have a favorite piece or pieces from the collection? Will there really be a fun novelty hotel robe?
Lindgren: This is our biggest collection to date, so it’s not easy to pick favorites, but for me, I’d have to say it would be the Sunset Blvd Suede Jacket. I just love the narrative behind it. Back in the day, when the Garden of Allah used to be across the street from the Chateau Marmont, patrons would often get struck by cars trying to jaywalk across Sunset to go back and forth. There’s a bend in the road there, and it’s pretty scary to run across to this day. Then we added various old dives on Sunset Blvd for the other establishments on the piece. I also went to rehab at this place called Jaywalker Lodge in Colorado, so it’s a funny homage for me. Love that place!
Franco:  I wear the robe out to coffee sometimes. It’s real Valley living style. I love the canvas jacket inspired by the MEMORY MOTEL and our striped HOLLYWOOD tee. Great fit and distressing. And the Crayon Shirt!

Some of the brands most cult-followed pieces are the hats (e.g. the James Dean). When the brand started, whose idea was it to have hats as such a focus, or did it happen naturally?
Lindgren: That was certainly not planned out. I used to just sun-fade hats out in the back alley of my little apartment in West Hollywood. I honestly can’t believe none of them ever got stolen. They were pretty easily visible from the street. I guess at the time, no one knew how valuable those early hats would have become.
Franco: We didn’t know what would happen. We designed shirts, hoodies, and hats. But Kyle took the title of a poem I wrote and put it on a hat: JAMES DEAN DEATH CULT, and everyone went crazy. Especially after Jacob Elordi wore it to the Venice Film Festival when he played Elvis.

Where can we find the new SS26 collection, and what can we look forward to in collections to come?
Lindgren: We have a pretty deep roster of best-in-class wholesale accounts globally. There also may be a flagship LA store in the works. Wink wink. For collections to come, you can expect a continuation of more storytelling and Hollywood lore. I’m also making a conscious effort to move into more refined and tailored pieces to round out the collections. I don’t want to be known as just a printable or streetwear brand, but I want to make sure our customers can have an entire wardrobe of pieces to select from without it feeling like you’re wearing a costume.

James, a lot of your art and drawings are used in PALY’s pieces. How do you both choose which illustrations will be used for each piece or collection?
Franco: I still draw every day. And then all the drawings get scanned so Kyle and I can draw on them when needed. We have themes and stories for each season, so we can with lullaby from existing drawings, or I can make new ones about whatever we’re on. Kyle and I go back and forth on every design – we complement each other well, and he has a great eye for graphic layouts and silhouettes. 

Kyle, how do your roots in skatewear influence this collection?
Lindgren: I think there’s a bit of grittiness that it brings to the table. I’d like to start adding some more refined items and high-quality basics so you can dress up or dress down without having to leave the PALY universe. The skatewear influence allows me to keep the edginess of the PALY DNA even if I’m designing something that’s intended to be worn in a more formal setting.

A lot of PALY’s pieces are known for the distressing techniques used on them. There is even a picture online of your hats being faded in the sun. Can you talk a little bit about how the distressing has become an integral part of the brand and how it’s done?
Lindgren: I love vintage, and for me, the closer I can get to recreating it, the better I am as a product developer. My initial background was in product development, so I often lean on those skills when I am designing. However, it can be a double-edged sword because it limits what I think is possible from a manufacturing standpoint. 

From start to finish, what’s the process like for a typical PALY design?
Kyle Lindgren: It’s kind of an extremely long and tedious process, but I’ll try to put it in a nutshell. James is constantly drawing new material, and that gets scanned into a drive. I think we have a stockpile of over 15,000 to date. Then we get a merch plan from sales and start mood boarding and sharing references and ideas with one another. Usually, around that time, we start to notice themes and stories we can riff off. Then I start fabric sourcing and mocking things up. For me, I like to mock things up in photoshop so they look semi-realistic. This shortens the sampling stage if I already have a pretty good idea of what it’s going to look like in real life. Then we go back and forth on the mock-up – add this drawing here, change this font color there, etc. I used to love making graphics before I would go into work at FA. I’d wake up at 4am or 5am and work on that for a few hours and then head in. That’s probably my favorite part of the design process: making the tee and hoodie graphics. 

PALY’s streetwear can be seen on celebrities like Jacob Elordi, Bad Bunny, and Hudson Williams. What’s it like seeing your Hollywood-inspired designs on some of the biggest Hollywood figures in real life?
Lindgren: I won’t be satisfied until I see Nas in one of our designs. And then I’ll find another excuse to keep going. 

You can view the original article HERE.