JustKids is the Paris Streetwear Brand that Gives Back to the Youth

It’s not often you see a streetwear brand taking visual cues from academia, but that’s exactly what JustKids does. With models posing next to metre-long pencils in its campaigns, and slogans that point to “learning”, “writing” and “school”, the Paris-based label and collective is founded on the belief that youth should be a chance for creativity, exploration and growth. 

But this message has two meanings. On the one hand, JustKids wants to motivate adults to reconnect with their younger selves and tap into those childlike emotions we often leave behind. But on the other hand, it's about giving young people the chance to experiment, learn and develop through free workshops and mentorship programmes. 

Having worked in fashion for over 10 years, its founder Adrien Leborgne was fed up with seeing brands “using the youth” – be that co-opting their energy, hosting activations that felt extractive, or merely sticking the term ‘youth’ over everything, without actually engaging with the people it implies. JustKids was his response: an attempt to address the lack of reciprocity he had seen elsewhere in the industry. 

Since launching in 2024, the imprint has hosted several different workshops and community events, including a recent collaboration with Jordan where young female basketball players were given the chance to design their own jersey. Titled ‘Learning By Doing’, the scheme guided kids through the complete creative process – from research and design to supplier feedback and production constraints – giving them invaluable tools for the future. 

And in return, Adrien’s community gives back as loyal fans of the brand. At the pop-up for JustKids’ most recent collection, ‘Write Your Own Story’, you could see many of them wearing the brand’s new range of jerseys, tracksuits, and skirts. The new capsule, Adrien explains, represents the next stage of maturity for JustKids: where he previously focussed on more childish designs and themes (and even baby gear), these products take this youthful energy and channel it into a more understated and elegant style, where patterns from basketballs are subtly incorporated into graphics, and classic silhouettes are brought into new contexts. 

We sat down with Adrien to speak about the young community he has nurtured, what he has learnt from them, and why it’s so important for brands to talk with their consumers. 

How do you describe the mission behind JustKids?

Everything we do is always related to childhood, from the campaign videos to the photos to the collections themselves. We want to bring this message to adults – don't forget your inner child – but also give motivation and inspiration to the youth, and show them that they can do whatever they want in life. 

What does the catchphrase “liberate your inner child” mean to you? 

When we grow up, we forget who we were as a kid. We have responsibilities; we have to fit into a society that is not pushing us to be 100% ourselves. It pushes us to follow this trend, this way of living, this way of speaking to others. So, releasing your inner child is about returning to that version of yourself when you were 100% yourself and not influenced by anything. I think we need to go back to those memories. 

You’ve spoken about how brands today can feel quite extractive in their relationship with young people… How do you aim to reverse that? 

There are a lot of brands that have lost contact with the youth. They just use them to make money: a cool collaboration, a cool project, blah, blah, blah. With JustKids, I want to talk to the youth and not just make money from them. I want to give them everything I wish I had when I was 15 or 16 years old: the opportunities and knowledge I never had growing up. Because I always had ideas, but I didn't know how to realise them. I didn't have the tools.

So that's what I'm trying to do with the workshops. It’s more like a charity because I don't make any money from it – actually I'm spending my own money, and sometimes I’ve had to cancel the launch of a new product or collection to put the money aside for the workshops. But the feeling I get makes it worth it: when I see the kids happy, or if a kid tells me they liked it, but it’s not what they want to do later, I see that as a win. Because when you know what you don't like, it's easier to find what you do like. 

Why is mentorship so important to you? 

I was lucky enough to have really good mentors such as Virgil Abloh, and a woman I met when I was working at Vivienne Westwood (she still helps me with the brand on the production side). I was very open-minded when I was younger, and asked loads of questions. But the youth today have social media, so they often go to the internet to do research. But I think it's still important to have mentors; people who will give you the tools to build your own stuff. 

Have you ever had any of the kids you work with design for the brand? 

Everything is designed by me for now. But that's the goal. I have a big community of young people who come to my events, pop-ups, and workshops. And they really – sorry for my language – fuck with the brand.

At the beginning, I was worried that the new generation wouldn’t understand what I'm trying to do with JustKids, but this new generation is very awake; they understand stuff. I have deep conversations with them when it comes to music, personal life, relationship stuff. Me and my friends weren’t like that when we were 17, and I felt very alone at that time. But this new generation is way more aware of mental health, you know? So I think that's why the ‘inner child’ message speaks to them. 

How does this new generation approach creativity differently? 

I think they're way more open; they have access to everything on the internet. But at the same time, something I try to tell kids at the workshops is that you guys have way more resources than us, but don't get lost in the sauce. Don't just look on Instagram and then go to your desk. Go back to the books, go visit some museums, go and speak to people instead of watching memes every day.

Having that in-person interaction is such a big part of your brand, and I can see you've had many events and pop-ups as well as the workshops. How have you built that community?

I think so often in the fashion scene there’s so much exclusivity, and I was getting really tired of that; you have to be cool, you have to be that person, you have to bring this. But when I do events, it’s open to everyone.

There’s no gender, no age. It doesn't matter what you do in life; if you want to come, you're more than welcome. For example, last year we had our one year anniversary and we did a basketball tournament. It was really organic; there was food, and people of different ages were chilling together, and I produced some free T-shirts to thank everyone who came.

JustKids is strongly inspired by basketball. Can you talk to me a bit about this connection?

I’ve played basketball since I was 5. So for the first part of my life, everything was basketball. My first pair of shoes was the Jordan 13, which got me interested in design. After that, I never wanted a basic shoe. I would redesign my jerseys and think of how I would do my own versions of things. 

When I played basketball in the US, I saw the way they dressed, from the tracksuits to the shoes, the socks, and the jerseys. Because fashion in basketball is not only on the court; it’s also the warm-up T-shirt before the game, the bag and the shoes you wear off-court. There are a lot of elements you can translate your style through in basketball. 

So yeah, all of that early exposure to graphic design still inspires everything I'm doing today with JustKids. But more generally, basketball has taught me a lot about how to work as a team. Everyone in a basketball team has their own position, and if we all work together the right way, we can make it work. This gave me a snippet of how life works. You cannot do everything by yourself. You have to be surrounded by people who excel at what they do. And that's the way you get to the top.