Studio City Family Designs For the Boys

Children's clothes follow trends, and right now, a boy who's in elementary school is as aware of what he wants to wear as ever before. He wants to be hip, but comfortable, and that's what the Studio City family of Hank Player USA is keenly aware of.

"I love Studio City," said Molly Rose Weintraub, sitting down for coffee at Aroma's on a recent morning. "The people here are so creative, young and old. This is like a beach community without the beach."

And that's how her dad, Sandy Weintraub, started their successful business two decades ago while living locally, because he tapped into the surf scene and distributed ultra cool clothing and designs that spread throughout the world as Hank Player USA.

As the family company started a re-launch two years ago, Molly Rose and her brother Danny

"We saw that girls were very much into their fashion, but boys were on the playground looking like ragamuffins," Molly Rose said. "Yet, they wanted to look cool, they cared about what they wear, and so we saw a niche."

Their niche is finding inexpensive easy-wearing clothes that look cool, feel comfortable and have designs and sayings on them that they could wear to grandma's house.

"We have had boys 8 and 9 years old who have come up to our booths and bought our clothes with their own money," Molly Rose said. "We see that they are interested in what they're wearing."

The San Fernando Valley has always been a trend-setter for the nation, especially when it comes to clothing for youth. Right now, a deep purple is in, and so is the saying "Blah, blah, blah" and so are collegiate-like designs, like the kind their Dad's wear. The Hank Player clothes are garment-dyed, soft, 100 percent cotton, with screen graphics from a set of artists that the Weintraub family have worked with for a long time.

"My Dad isn't much of an artist, he draws stick figures, but our family comes from long line of entrepreneurs," said Molly Rose, who went to local schools—Carpenter, Wonderland and the Oakwood schools.

At 27, Molly Rose doesn't have boys of her own to try her line out on, but she has plenty of friends locally and she tests out designs on them.

"They are not jaded and are very honest about what they like and don't like," she said. "Basketball and soccer is huge, and that's an influence on them."

Kids like zippered sweatshirts so they can get in and out of them quickly, and Jersey fleece. They want to look like their Dads but not be obvious about it, and Hank Player tries to capture the quick wisecracking temperament of an 8-year-old who knows what he wants.

The clothing line is available at Nordstrom and Lord & Taylor and they have an online website at HankPlayer.com  A downtown showroom is available by appointment.

Hank Player is also working on a father/son line, and a convenient traveling case for a guy that he can use for meetings, carry on the plane and including a computer, water bottle and office stuff without looking like he is coming from the office.

"Kids like two-toned clothes, bright colors, and they seem to like the collegiate decals," Molly Rose observed. "And most likely these kids around here are going to be college bound."