For Francis Young, hosting a showroom at last year’s Paris Fashion Week felt surreal, in a dream-come-true way.

The founder of the do-good menswear line Paratodo had come a long way since the days when his police officer parents urged him to pursue a more practical profession. Although he still called (and calls) his West Philadelphia apartment his design studio, Young knew that taking part in fashion’s most hallowed event meant he really had made it. As international style setters browsed his collection of utility-meets-modernity jackets, shirts, shorts and technical pants (along with pieces from Italian shoe and outerwear designer ROA and knit and outerwear up-and-comer Rice Nine Ten), he almost had to pinch himself. Paris.

“I was looking at some of the samples and some of the stuff we did in the beginning [of the brand] and … I was thinking about how my skills as a designer have evolved,” he says.

Young may have been in shock, but Paratodo’s devotees, who’ve been following Young’s looks for close to a decade, likely wonder what took so long. Take his current spring collection, much of which quickly sold out, including a zip-up Japanese seersucker jacket; a lemon-ice-colored rippled cotton shirt with minimal buttons and David Byrne vibes; and windowpane- and giant dot-print multi-use shorts. Each piece is simultaneously classic and avant garde, made for both wear and for show.

The looks are what got him to Paris. But what makes Partado, which translates to “for all” in Spanish, a true outlier is that, since its founding in 2016, its founder has always used his company’s profits and wiles to support people and causes in need.

Over the life of the small-but-mighty business, Young has donated more than $25,000 — a substantial sum, seeing as he has yet been able to afford to hire a single employee.

Clothes for a cause

Young was an artsy kid who coveted his older brother’s sneaker collection — and, when he got old enough to choose his own clothes, copied his brother’s streetwear-inspired looks.

He took those looks to Temple, where he studied Spanish and criminal justice, still thinking he’d follow in his parents’ footsteps. “I spent college focusing on Plan B,” he says. “I never really gave too much effort into thinking about Plan A, which would have been design. I was like, Let me focus my energy on what I can do with those attributes and those skills.”

But, come senior year, he decided to branch out, and applied for and got an internship at the South Street menswear boutique P’s & Q’s, known for stocking underdog and local labels.

P’s & Q’s founders-brothers Ky and Rick Cao, who originally made a name for themselves with the concept streetwear / sneaker shop Abakus Takeout in 2008, gave Young an opportunity to learn about retail, the consumer side of design. He was good at it, and the brothers took him on as an employee after his internship ended. From there, Young started thinking about what it would take to become a designer and manage his own business.

He always knew he wanted more than just to make cool clothes. He also wanted what he made to do good in the world. In this endeavor, he was following in a long list of mission-driven local designers and retailers, including Ardmore’s American Trench, which aims to revive and sustain U.S. apparel manufacturers, and eco-conscious, South Philly-based womenswear makers Lobo Mau.

With Paratodo, launched in 2016, Young took things a step further. Like his peers, he creates his pieces to be long-lasting and manufactured locally. But the primary way Paratodo creates change is through partnering with nonprofits. At the outset, as The Citizen chronicled in 2017, Young declared he’d donate 25 percent of profits to a new charity every season. Now, he’s found a more sustainable formula. Both solutions have meant, he says, “We’ve gotten to work with a lot of nonprofits, both locally and abroad. I met hundreds of people and became acquainted with issues I hadn’t really thought about.”

Modern classic menswear

It’s no surprise, given his time at P’s & Q’s and his early interest in streetwear, that Young’s earliest designs for Paratodo were graphic tees inspired by nonprofit partners. As the line grew, so did his expertise and his tailoring. He now creates cut-and-sew menswear that is experimental in feel: button-downs in French terry; roomy, wave-patterned denim shorts; and a palette that includes acid greens, amethyst, and soft, creamsicle orange. Partado retails online, and from a handful of smaller boutiques, including P’s & Q’s.

“It’s really developed over time,” Young says of his designs. “People gravitate to [the clothes] because they are interesting to the touch, interesting to the eye too.”

Young manufacturers the vast majority of the line in a factory in New Jersey. Only when a piece calls for a different style or level of cutting or sewing does he work with makers outside the U.S. Examples: His Peruvian alpaca knits, and soccer jerseys made of a wicking fabric that’s proprietary to a specific Chinese manufacturer. When it comes to pieces like these, he’s been outspoken about the devastating effects tariffs have on designers, including knock-on effects, since he’s had to raise prices across the board, including for NJ-made clothes.

Shannon Maldonado, the visionary designer behind YOWIE (and a neighbor of P’s & Q’s), first heard of Paratodo when Young was still working at the shop. She liked the line’s palette and the mission so much that when her shelter shop moved into a larger space, she began to carry pieces from the line. Her instinct was spot-on.

“People get really excited when they see it in the shop,” she says. “He’s done a good job of capturing classics with a twist, like with his take on some workwear or military-inspired styles.”

From Philly to Paris

Paratodo still has a philanthropic bent, though how the label supports nonprofits has evolved to ensure the business is financially stable. Instead of donating a blanket 25 percent each season, Young has been collaborating with organizations on special benefit projects: hoodies inspired by the animal-welfare organization PAWS, a weekend where all his sales went to California wildfire relief.

These collabs haven’t just benefitted others; they’ve expanded Young’s views too. During Covid he partnered with Juntos and he learned more about the challenges immigrants face — and how the pandemic made matters so much worse. “A lot of people in the immigrant communities weren’t entitled to things like those $2,000 checks,” he says. “Juntos did a lot of fundraisers and drives to give those communities everyday goods.”

One of Paratodo’s most meaningful nonprofit partnerships was with Prevention Point, the Kensington-based substance abuse treatment and homelessness services organization. Young reached out to them about collaborating in 2023, after his brother died after a years-long battle with addiction. Young donated proceeds from a collection, and went to their location on Kensington Avenue to volunteer. It felt like a full circle moment.

The collaboration, says Prevention Point’s Hilary Disch, “felt like a real opportunity for us as a nonprofit to celebrate this really cool local, creative business.”

Paratodo hosts its second showroom at Paris Fashion Week in June and celebrates its 10- year anniversary in October. Planning for all that, plus upcoming TBA nonprofit collabs, potential expansion, and hopefully, finally bringing on more help, have made Young reflective on how far he’s come, and what’s next.

“I was just thinking about the word success, not to get all philosophical, but I think it is a very ongoing, developmental type of thing. I don’t think success is like a point at which you reach. I think it’s a point that you maintain,” he says. “I would love to see more businesses collaborate with organizations that are rooted in their communities. We always are looking for ways to work with nonprofits and I wish that like other companies would try to do the same.”

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