French Connection (clothing)
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| Public company | |
| Traded as | : |
| Industry | Clothing |
| Founded | 1972 |
| Headquarters | London, UK |
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Key people
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Stephen Marks, Chairman & CEO Adam Castleton, Finance Director Neil Williams, Operations Director |
| Products | Clothing, accessories, watches, perfumes, toiletries, glasses, etc. |
| Revenue | £189.4 million GBP (2014) |
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Number of employees
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2,260 (2014) |
| Website | www.frenchconnection.com |
French Connection (also branded as FCUK) is a UK-based global retailer and wholesaler of fashion clothing, accessories and homeware. Founded in the early 1970s by Stephen Marks, who remains chief executive, it is based in London and its parent French Connection Group PLC is listed on the .
French Connection distributes its clothing and accessories through its own stores in the UK, US and Canada and through franchise and wholesale arrangements globally. The company became notorious for the use of the "fcuk" initialism in its advertising campaigns in the early 2000s.
Other brands currently within the group include Great Plains, Toast and YMC. Former brands include Nicole Farhi.
Stephen Marks, who started out in business in 1969 as the Stephen Marks brand, established French Connection in 1972 – a year after the film of the same name was released. Initially designed as a mid-market women's brand, he has said the name came about because he managed to acquire a large shipment of Indian cheesecloth shirts – via a French contact – that could be resold in the UK at a large profit. The business expanded into menswear in 1976.
In 1978, Nicole Farhi joined French Connection as a designer. In 1983, her eponymous higher-end label was launched by the French Connection parent group and this was not sold until 2010.
After Marks floated the French Connection brand on the in 1984, he was listed as the 15th richest man in Britain, but by the late 1980s the company was in trouble. He took control of the direction of French Connection again in 1991.
French Connection began using the branding "fcuk" (usually written in lowercase, and deliberately similar to the taboo-word "fuck") in advertising after 1991 when Marks regained control. Reportedly, the first use of the initialism was on faxes sent between Hong Kong and London offices, headed "FCHK to FCUK". Marks said in a subsequent interview that the faxes were not intended to be rude. The advertising campaign came about after he was so impressed by a bra advert featuring Eva Herzigová that he contacted the advertising executive behind it, Trevor Beattie, even though the company did not have a budget for an advertising campaign at the time. It was Beattie who spotted the marketing potential of the initialism and a campaign was launched around it.
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