French Connection (clothing)

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For other uses, see The French Connection.

French Connection

Type	Public company
Founded	London (1972)
Headquarters	London
Key people	Stephen Marks, Chairman & CEO Roy Naismith, Finance Director
Industry	Clothing [1]
Products	Clothing, cosmetics
Revenue	▲ £265.7 million GBP (2005)
Employees	2,424 (2004)
Website	www.frenchconnection.com

French Connection is a company founded in the United Kingdom in 1972^[1] which sells clothing and accessories in many parts of the world.

In April 1997, French Connection began branding their clothes "fcuk" (usually written in lowercase). Large stores are in Leeds and London. Though they insisted it was an acronym for French Connection United Kingdom, its similarity to the word "fuck" caused controversy.^[2] French Connection fully exploited this and produced an extremely popular range of t-shirts with messages such as "fcuk this", "hot as fcuk", "mile high fcuk", "lucky fcuk", "Fun Comes Usually Kneeling", "fcuk on the beach", etc. There were also a number of regionally specific messages, such as "fcuk in hull" (bearing similarity to "fucking hell") and "no fcukin worries" (in Australia) and "fcuk off". "Chugging the fcuk" and "Munching on fcuk" were popular shirt titles but were later found as inappropriate. Designer Daniel Greenwood later sued the company for inconsistency in shirt titles and lack of lenience. Apparently they first discovered the acronym when a fax was sent from their Hong Kong store FCHK to FCUK.

In 2001, during the introduction of French Connection in San Francisco, big banners hung on the front of the newly opened store saying "San Francisco's first fcuk."

1 Distribution
2 Legal cases and controversy
3 Fashion vs Style
4 Cultural references
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Distribution

French Connection shop

French Connection has distributing stores worldwide. It predominantly sells its clothing through its own stores, though many other shops stock its ranges. In the United States, the fcuk brand has been controversial; the American Family Association, for example, has urged a boycott of fcuk products.^[3]

[edit] Legal cases and controversy

FCUK billboard in Melbourne, Australia.

French Connection launched a trademark infringement case in the London High Court challenging the owner of "First Consultants UK Ltd", a computer company, over its use of the fcuk acronym. It was proven in the case the Internet Domain fcuk.com was registered prior to French Connection applying for the UK Trademark and its claim for passing off was dismissed. Mr Justice Rattee, refused to grant an injunction, describing French Connection's use of it as "a tasteless and obnoxious campaign."^[4]

The company also threatened legal action against the right-wing political youth organisation Conservative Future, which had briefly adopted the spoof abbrevation "cfuk" (short for "Conservative Future UK").^[5]

Another judge reportedly expelled a potential juror from his courtroom for wearing one of the fcuk range of T-shirts, saying that the "mis-spelt Anglo Saxon word" was a distraction and did not dignify the court proceedings.^[6]

Following years of complaints, the UK's Advertising Standards Authority banned a number of advertisements and ordered the company to submit all posters for approval before running them.^[2]

In the United States, mayor of Boston, Massachusetts Thomas Menino told French Connection to remove their ads from billboards throughout the city, according to the Boston Metro.

[edit] Fashion vs Style

A fcuk store in Toronto.

In February 2006 French Connection launched the Fashion vs Style campaign that replaced the previous fcuk advertising. The first advertisement in the campaign was directed by Duncan Jones, son of David Bowie, and featured girls in the roles of Fashion and Style fighting.

It was reported in the national press that this advert received between 121 and 127 complaints in the first week of being broadcast and may become as controversial as the previous fcuk campaign.^[7]

[edit] Cultural references

In the 2004 film Layer Cake, the character XXXX played by Daniel Craig walks through a pharmacy, past products bearing labels such as "FCUK Reality" cocaine. The founder of French Connection, Stephen Marks, was the executive producer of the film. [2]