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Either your mom let you wear a French Connection T-shirt saying "FCUK OFF" in huge letters across your triple-A-battery sized boobs when you were 12, or she didn’t. If she did, and you kinda miss those days, you’ll delight in the news that FCUK is back. (If she didn't, now's your chance to fulfill that teenage dream.)
The comeback campaign, which was shot by photographer Harley Weir and stylist Julia Sarr-Jamois, features quite a diverse casting: British musician Will Heard, Argentinian artist Conie Vallese, French model Angie Sherbourne, Polish model Coco Kate, and British model/artist Wilson Oryema.
French Connection's glory days were, arguably, when the "fcuk" logo reigned supreme. (That acronym stands for "French Connection United Kingdom," in case you'd forgotten or, perhaps, never knew what that almost-explicative logo meant.)
The brand was founded in 1972 by Stephen Marks, who's still at the helm as CEO and chairman. And to produce his line of cheeky basics, Marks looked to Hong Kong's then-relatively-untapped manufacturing resources. As for that attention-grabbing acronym? An ad agency that had caught Marks' attention with its saucy Wonderbra campaigns came up with that in the early '90s, according to The Independent; sales have been lagging since the mid-aughts, according to the publication.
"The images create a nostalgic tribute to fashion, photography, music and the talent which emerged from this era," Marks said in a press release. "We feel that this season is the right time to re-introduce FCUK as a celebration of our brand heritage.”
The loaded logo was the closest thing to punk rebellion I had as a teenager on the high streets of South East London, donning a new innuendo every Saturday and waiting patiently outside Boots for respectable people to frown. My personal favorites included: "too busy to fcuk," "cool as fcuk," "go fcuk yourself," and "let’s fcuk."
Convincing my mother that "FCUK" was a perfectly innocent acronym for French Connection United Kingdom was the finest moment of my teen years. The throwback logo T-shirts will be in stores starting in early February, and will retail for roughly $20 and up. In the meantime, check out the full campaign in the following slideshow.
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