Nine-Year-Old Cru King Launches King’s Chocolate Company

By Nathan Brooks

Nine-year-old Cru King is launching King’s Chocolate Company during New York Fashion Week, according to the company’s launch announcement. The launch places the family-named brand in the same environment where King spent much of his childhood, while leaving the full product lineup and plans beyond the event undisclosed.

“Our children have collected more backstage passes than amusement park tickets,” Krissy King said. Her comment describes the unusual setting around Cru and his two younger siblings, ages six and five. The company said the three regularly travel with their parents to Fashion Week productions and are homeschooled.

Cru is the eldest son of The Bureau Fashion Week founders Krissy and Brady King. King’s Chocolate Company’s launch materials trace his runway exposure to 18 months old. He walked a runway and modeled for designer Pia Bolte as a toddler, before he could remember it.

The company said his childhood unfolded around designers, models, photographers and the machinery behind major fashion productions. Rehearsals, castings, business conversations and backstage operations became familiar parts of life. At nine, King is moving from participating in his parents’ productions to starting a project attached to his own name.

That venture changes his role from participant to founder, according to the launch account. It also gives him a chance to turn backstage access into a brand of his own. Krissy and Brady King built The Bureau Fashion Week while raising their children.

King’s Chocolate Company’s launch account says Krissy answered emails during nap times, planned productions after bedtime, and traveled with diaper bags, laptops and garment racks. She also nursed babies backstage while lining up models for shows.

King’s childhood included finished shows and crowded venues, according to the launch account. It also included deadlines, financial pressures, travel and long hours before anyone reached the runway.

“If it were easy, everyone would do it,” Brady King has said of the experience of building The Bureau. That warning tempers the launch’s unusual advantages. New York Fashion Week offers King an audience and setting most first-time entrepreneurs do not have, while his parents bring experience in marketing, event production and business development.

What does the launch change for young founders?

The practical answer is that King starts with an audience advantage, not a finished set of answers. The launch materials note that children starting businesses are no longer unusual, as social media and e-commerce have made it easier for young creators to introduce products. His case adds the audience and setting New York Fashion Week provides.

His parents’ experience in marketing, event production and business development adds support around him. It does not settle four basic questions every founder eventually confronts:

• The product
• The intended customer
• The presentation
• The reason to buy

For King, those questions may matter more than immediate commercial success, according to the launch account. The launch supplies visibility. Product definition, target customer and the reason to buy still require answers.

From family participation to a named venture

King’s Chocolate Company also extends a family story built around The Bureau Fashion Week. Cru is no longer only accompanying his parents or appearing in their shows; the company now carries his name. Krissy King wants her children to understand leadership through experience rather than titles.

“As a wife, mother, and business owner, I hope our children see that leadership isn’t about titles. It’s about serving people well,” Krissy King said. The launch gives Cru an early way to test that principle as the person putting his name on a venture. It also shifts his role within the family from observer to operator.

The announcement has not disclosed the full product lineup or plans beyond the New York Fashion Week introduction. King’s Chocolate Company’s launch account says it is too early to measure the venture against conventional business benchmarks. The launch materials list kingschocolates.com as the company’s website.

Still, the milestone is concrete. Cru first walked a runway before he could remember it; after much of his childhood watching his parents build, he returns to New York Fashion Week at nine with a company bearing his name. The next test is whether King can turn that high-profile introduction into a clear product, a defined customer and a reason to buy—the questions his launch leaves open.