Entrepreneurs launch new functional fashion venture

THE founders of Fan Frames have teamed up with the entrepreneur behind the multi-million pound gadget shop business RED5 to launch a new fashion business.

Paul Gibson and Chris Birkett, whose Hull-based Fan Frames business produces sunglasses and spectacle frames in football club branding and colours, have formed Monocle Madness with Jonathan Elvidge.

Unique to the UK, the new business, which sells portable reading devices – monocles – was launched after Mr Elvidge couldn’t find anywhere to buy one in the UK.

“We’re planning to put the monocle back into mainstream fashion,” Mr Birkett said.

Mr Birkett and Mr Gibson said online sales have taken off and the product is hoped to be launched in a number of shops soon. The business has also already completed international sales to countries including Israel and Australia.

The earliest versions of monocles were apparently developed during the 1720s by Prussian antiquarian Baron Phillip von Stosch. The correctional device was used primarily to allow the individual to examine engravings and gemstones in more detail. Adaptions and improvements were made during the 1800s, culminating in the modern version we see today with the gallery extension designed to fit securely between the upper and lower eye socket.

Meanwhile, Fan Frames, which has enjoyed international online sales to every continent in the world since the product launched in 2012, says it is poised for exponential growth in the UK, India, US, South East Asia and South America.

Fan Frames is the official supplier of club-branded glasses and sunglasses for many of the top Premier League clubs, including Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester United and Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur.

The business currently sells its products in 300 stores, and online, major customers include Sports Direct, which it is hoping to sell in store with by 2016.

The firm is also now collaborating with Icon Eyewear in Holland distributing a high-fashion collection of reading glasses and sunglasses to the likes of TK Maxx and Arcadia.

“The potential for the business is huge,” Mr Gibson added.

Having recently signed a deal to sell its products through US-based equipment and merchandise retailer, Sports Endeavours, providing “valuable exposure to the massive American market”, it is now planning to target the Indian market.