Cotton Traders is a British

clothing Clothing (also known as clothes, garments, dress, apparel, or attire) is any item worn on a human human body, body. Typically, clothing is made of fabrics or textiles, but over time it has included garments made from animal skin and other thin s ...

company, specialising in

leisure Leisure (, ) has often been defined as a quality of experience or as free time. Free time is time spent away from business, Employment, work, job hunting, Housekeeping, domestic chores, and education, as well as necessary activities such as ...

wear, based in

Altrincham Altrincham ( , locally ) is a market town in Trafford, Greater Manchester, England, south of the River Mersey. It is southwest of Manchester, southwest of Sale, Greater Manchester, Sale and east of Warrington. At the 2021 United Kingdom ce ...

Greater Manchester Greater Manchester is a ceremonial county in North West England. It borders Lancashire to the north, Derbyshire and West Yorkshire to the east, Cheshire to the south, and Merseyside to the west. Its largest settlement is the city of Manchester. ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

. It was founded in 1987 by former

England national rugby union team The England national rugby union team represents the Rugby Football Union (RFU) in international rugby union. They compete in the annual Six Nations Championship with France national rugby union team, France, Ireland national rugby union team, ...

captains Fran Cotton and Steve Smith. Cotton Traders' range of products commercialised include

lingerie Lingerie (, , ) is a category of primarily women's clothing including undergarments (mainly brassieres), sleepwear, and lightweight robes. The choice of the word is often motivated by an intention to imply that the garments are alluring, fashio ...

footwear Footwear refers to garments worn on the feet, which typically serve the purpose of protective clothing, protection against adversities of the environment such as wear from rough ground; stability on slippery ground; and temperature. *Shoes and si ...

, and accessories such as bags, scarves, socks, hats, and belts. In past years, the company also produced

rugby union Rugby union football, commonly known simply as rugby union in English-speaking countries and rugby 15/XV in non-English-speaking world, Anglophone Europe, or often just rugby, is a Contact sport#Terminology, close-contact team sport that orig ...

kit uniforms.

History

Cotton Traders is a multichannel British clothing retailer founded in 1987 by former

rugby captains, Fran Cotton and Steve Smith, and based in Altrincham, England. The company sells casual clothing and footwear collections for men and women, plus a new homeware collection, Cotton Home, in over 25 countries worldwide. The company started out in a small room next to Altrincham railway station, supplying rugby shirts via mail order using advertisements in the Sunday newspapers.Our history
on cottontraders.com After two years in business, Cotton Traders reached an annual turnover of £2million with new men's and women's casual clothing collections being added to their offering, followed by footwear and accessories. Today, it is a multichannel retailer, employing a staff of more than 800 with an annual gross turnover of more than £86 million. Starting in 1991, the company signed license agreements to produce and sell replica jerseys of some of the main rugby national teams in the world, including England,

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

(1992), and

Wales Wales ( ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by the Irish Sea to the north and west, England to the England–Wales border, east, the Bristol Channel to the south, and the Celtic ...

(1994). President of South Africa and leader

Nelson Mandela Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela ( , ; born Rolihlahla Mandela; 18 July 1918 – 5 December 2013) was a South African Internal resistance to apartheid, anti-apartheid activist and politician who served as the first president of South Africa f ...

attended the

1995 Rugby World Cup The 1995 Rugby World Cup (), was the third Rugby World Cup. It was hosted and won by South Africa, and was the first Rugby World Cup in which every match was held in one country. The World Cup was the first major sporting event to take place in ...

final wearing a replica shirt by Cotton Traders. In 1997, clothing retailer Next purchased a share of the business with the other two-thirds owned by the founders. In 2014, Cotton and Smith bought back the 33% share of Cotton Traders held by Next, regaining full ownership of the company. In May 2018, fellow Altrincham-based company, CorpAcq, acquired a majority stake in Cotton Traders. CorpAcq was formed in 2006 by founder and Chairman, Simon Orange. Its portfolio of at least 20 businesses has a combined turnover of over £200m. CorpAcq also owns the rugby union club, Sale Sharks, where Cotton Traders co-founders Fran Cotton and Steve Smith sit on the board. The company operates from three main buildings in Altrincham, and a distribution centre in Nottingham. Head office departments are split between Cotton Traders House, Cotton Mill (formerly Neptune House) and the Cotton Hub. Cotton Traders operates 80 retail stores nationwide in high street, retail outlets, garden centres and travel locations. They also provide an overseas delivery service to over 25 countries, with dedicated websites for customers internationally, in Ireland and Australia.

Rose symbol legal action

Cotton Traders were the official suppliers of rugby kit to the

Rugby Football Union The Rugby Football Union (RFU) is the Sports governing body, national governing body for rugby union in England. It was founded in 1871, and was the sport's international governing body prior to the formation of what is now known as World Rugby ...

(RFU) between 1991 and 1997, including supplying the rugby shirts worn by the

. As an official supplier, Cotton Traders also produced replica shirts for sale to the public. Following the loss of the contract to Nike in 1997, Cotton Traders continued producing a rugby shirt for sale in the style of the English national team, namely a white shirt with a red rose emblem on the chest. This culminated in a legal case being brought against Cotton Traders by the RFU and Nike in 2002, seeking to ban the sale of what they deemed 'unauthorised merchandise'. A High Court judge ruled in favour of Cotton Traders in the case, citing that the classic style rose used on the Cotton Traders shirt was associated with England as a country or team and not the RFU specifically, and as such it could not be registered as a

trademark A trademark (also written trade mark or trade-mark) is a form of intellectual property that consists of a word, phrase, symbol, design, or a combination that identifies a Good (economics and accounting), product or Service (economics), service f ...

.Legal implications of the RFU’s merchandise defeat
at Marketing Week – 4 Apr 2002

Notes

References

External links

* {{official website Clothing brands of the United Kingdom Companies based in Trafford