FCUK Perfume
Fcuk is an acronym for French Connection UK and was launched in 1993 when the company decided customers needed to differentiate this range from the French Connection brand.French Connection itself was started by Stephen Marks, the son of a hairdresser, who grew up in the Harrow area of London. The young Marks was a keen tennis player and won the Wimbledon Junior’s title in 1964 at the age of 18. Needing a way to earn a living, he went to work for a clothing manufacturer run by a family friend.
Toward the end of the 1960s, Marks left the coat manufacturer for clothing designer and manufacturer Louis Feraud. Marks was behind the successful launch of the company's Miss Feraud label, leading Feraud's management to offer Marks a position as a director of the company. Marks was disappointed that this offer did not include a share in the company, and a friend offered financial backing for Marks to go into business for himself. In 1969, with just £17,000, Marks established Stephen Marks London Ltd. The clothing was designed by Marks, who was joined in the business by a pattern cutter and an accountant.
He quickly displayed a flair for fashion, and on a trip to Paris, he discovered the newest French fashion phenomenon, hotpants.
Marks launched his own label, designing a line of suits and coats, although he was to become especially known for his youth-oriented fashions. Marks then entered the retail arena, opening a furniture and clothing shop, called Cane, then a second store, also in London, called Friends. The French Connection brand name appeared in the 1970s as Marks contracted to sell his designs through the retail chain, Top Shop. Marks was joined by freelance designer, Nicole Farhi, who became his companion and mother of his first child, and then the company's chief designer. Farhi not only handled the youth-oriented designs French Connection, but also began to produce designs under her own name for an older, wealthier women's market.
French Connection soon became the company's retail store brand, as Marks began to open new stores in London and then throughout the United Kingdom. The Nicole Farhi brand was also transformed into its own retail format, yet French Connection remained the company's flagship brand.
At the end of the decade, however, French Connection appeared to be on the brink of disaster. The company had been caught in the beginning of a new recession that affected not only the United Kingdom, but also the company's growing activities in the United States. Despite holding two-thirds of the company's shares, Marks resigned from the CEO chair in 1989, a position taken up by Michael Shen. By then Marks's personal relationship with Farhi had ended, although they remained business partners.
Until the mid-1990s, French Connection had operated more or less without an advertising budget. In 1997, the company turned to the then independent Trevor Beattie for help. Beattie quickly spotted an opportunity in the company's own name. French Connection's United Kingdom office had long been addressing its correspondence with its Hong Kong office using the acronyms from FCUK to FCHK. The FCUK acronym had also been used in the company's stores, but Beattie took the acronym and turned it into a U.K. sensation.
After an initial series of deliberately provocative ads, featuring models wearing "fcuk fashion," the company launched a new billboard and press campaign, playing on the appeal of the FCUK logo. Complaints from, among others, the Church of England (for the company's "fcuk Christmas" campaign), brought the company under investigation from the U.K.'s Advertising Standards Association. The controversy surrounding French Connections new advertising campaign helped put the company into high profile. Backed by a string of strong clothing designs, French Connection's sales took off, reaching £83 million in 1997 and topping £117 million by 1999. The company quickly added new stores, boosting its total number of French Connection and Nicole Farhi stores to more than 100 by the end of the decade. The company's wholesale arm was also performing strongly, adding a number of foreign concessions in countries such as Australia, Holland, the Scandinavian market, Singapore and Hong Kong, and Saudi Arabia and Dubai.
The Fcuk fragrances were launched in 2003, Fcuk him and Fcuk her, expanding the company’s profits and success even more widely.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|