A British casual clothing and footwear brand, founded in 1988 by two friends selling T-shirts to skiers, now with more than 180 UK stores and owned by Next.
FatFace is a British brand that sells relaxed, outdoorsy clothing, footwear and accessories for women and men. It sells through shops and online, and it has more than 180 stores in the UK and 20 in the United States, plus an international website. Since September 2024 its website has run on Next's Total Platform, which is the technology Next uses to run its own online shop.
The story starts in the French ski resort of Meribel in 1988, when Tim Slade, a former policeman, and Jules Leaver, a business graduate, began buying plain T-shirts wholesale, printing designs of the resort on them and selling them to skiers. They used the first profits to pay for their own skiing. The name comes from the Face de Bellevarde slope in Val-d'Isere. FatFace opened its first shop on London's Fulham Road in 1993. In October 2023 the company was bought by Next plc, and it continues to trade as FatFace. We did not find a formal mission statement in the sources we read, so we have not invented one.
FatFace has shops on high streets and in shopping centres across the UK. The sources we read did not confirm the location of its head office, and a search result suggested it is in Havant in Hampshire, but we have not verified this, so please check the company's website before relying on it. We could not find a current headcount. Will Crumbie has been chief executive since September 2021.
On culture, the company has a charity side: a search result referred to a Fat Face Foundation and to a charity outlet in Havant selling discounted clothes, but we did not read these pages, so we cannot describe what they do. In January 2021 the company was hit by a ransomware attack, a type of cyber-crime that locks up computer systems, which it disclosed in March 2021. For students interested in technology, the case is a reminder that every retailer has to protect customer data.
A business like this employs designers and buyers who plan each season's range, merchandisers who plan stock, store teams who serve customers, e-commerce and digital staff, marketing, finance, and distribution and customer-service staff. Its stores are spread across the UK, so there are jobs in many towns and not only in big cities. It is also a good example of a brand that began with a simple idea, selling a product people liked to a community that wanted it, and grew from there.
Website: www.fatface.com
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