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French Connection is back on the trail of global expansion with the aid of its cheeky initials-based slogan that made it so popular in the late 1990s.

The label once known for clothes bearing FCUK is seeking to reinvent itself again under the ownership of a group of British entrepreneurs based in the north of England who rescued it in 2021.

This week, the former high street darling signed a licensing agreement to develop and distribute men’s and women’s apparel and accessories across North America, which is understood to include plans to revive the FCUK branding.

It is the latest chapter in a rollercoaster story of success and setback. French Connection was founded in 1972 by Stephen Marks, who named it after the film starring Gene Hackman released the previous year.

The entrepreneur hired the French designer Nicole Farhi to head his design studio in the 1970s and she later launched her own label under the company’s umbrella. Together they made French Connection a hit, with a London stock market float in 1983 helping make Marks the UK’s 15th richest man for a time.

The pair also became partners romantically and had a daughter together before separating at about the end of the decade. By that point the brand had fallen out of favour, prompting Marks to retake directorial control in 1991.

It recaptured the public’s imagination thanks to the swear-adjacent slogan coined by the ad man Trevor Beattie in 1997 after he noticed the initials used in French Connection internal memos. It was emblazoned on T-shirts in phrases such as “FCUK Fashion” and “Hot as FCUK”.

For several years over this period Marks’s wife, Alisa, had a key design role, but they split in late 2003 after a decade of marriage and their expensive divorce forced Marks to sell shares in the business, relinquishing majority control.

By the mid-noughties, shoppers had tired of the FCUK joke and it was dropped in 2005. The company, which still owns the Great Plains brand and once owned the YMC and Toast labels as well as Nicole Farhi, struggled to find a new identity and was also hit by bad debts partly related to the collapse of House of Fraser, where it had concessions.

A return to the bawdy branding in 2016 failed to revive the company in the face of heavy competition from cheaper rivals such as Asos, Zara and H&M.

Marks ran the business until he sold up in 2021, eventually relinquishing control after years of losses and mounting pressure from investors as the value of the firm dived from half a billion pounds in its heyday to less than £50m.

Its new owners no longer use FCUK in the chain’s handful of British stores, although the brand has been sold for short periods in the UK via retailers such as Urban Outfitters as a retro label that appeals to 1990s nostalgia.

It has, however, become a hit in India, where local licensee Myntra describes the clothing as having “distinct laid-back attitude for when you don’t want to look like you are trying hard to look good” accompanied by “powerful, provocative slogans”.

Apinder Singh Ghura, a Newcastle-based businessman, oversaw the £29m rescue takeover in 2021 of the brand that took it off the London Stock Exchange. The current owners also include his Manchester-based business partner, Amarjit Singh Grewal, and KJR Brothers, which is led by Rafiq Patel, a textile businessman.

The group’s new North American licensing deal with G-III Apparel Group, which controls brands including Calvin Klein, Karl Lagerfeld and DKNY, forms part of the road to reinvention. G-III will take over French Connection’s existing team in the US and oversees distribution via more than 700 boutiques and department stores.

Ghura, who spent years in the clothing industry before shifting to other investments including property and care homes and the Bench streetwear brand, which he has now sold, said French Connection was targeting the 25-plus market with good-quality garments at an affordable price.

“I see French Connection as a great brand with great equity and recognition, everything a blue-chip brand should have we have got,” he said.

Ghura said the UK government “hadn’t done the business community any favours” with its decisions on tax and pay, but the label could compete against cut-price competitors such as Shein as “every brand has its place and we appeal to our customers because of the DNA we possess”.

The brand, which at one time had more than 140 stores in the UK and hundreds of franchise outlets elsewhere, now has just 10 French Connection stores in the UK and 15 discount outlets but sells through 60 concessions, including every John Lewis.

It is also distributed on the websites of Marks & Spencer, Asos and Next in the UK and Otto in Germany and Austria, and is planning a small number of new high-street outlets.

In 2024, the brand’s sales fell 10% to £108m, but pre-tax profits shot up to £1.6m from just £0.3m a year before according to the latest accounts filed at Companies House.

Sales at established stores are now rising by more than 10% after the group improved quality, ditched poor-performing branches and brought in a new head of design – Helen Gallagher – from fashion brand Mint Velvet.

The performance stands out among the UK’s mid-market fashion brands, which have been hit by lacklustre spending as younger shoppers have less spare cash amid rising energy and phone bills and other costs such as Netflix subscriptions, gym memberships and music festivals.

The revival comes as fellow 90s stalwart Topshop attempts to win its way back into wardrobes via a new online stores and outlets in John Lewis, while River Island battles for survival with a rescue restructure.

Ghura said French Connection would be focusing on “capital light” expansion via licensees, with hopes to find partners in south-east Asia and China and to widen its footwear and accessories ranges, rather than opening dozens of expensive UK outlets.

Simon Donoghue, the managing director of French Connection’s retail and online business, said the company had “zero tolerance of loss-making stores” and was now in its third season of strong underlying growth as it got the “value for money equation really sorted”.

“Prices are now similar to four years ago, but it is better quality and that resonates,” he said. “It comes back to design and product. Getting that right gives confidence to invest more in inventory.”