Jeffrey Rogers

Jeffrey Rogers established his eponymous company in the 1970s in Margaret Street, Soho, with a staff of three. Over time, his company grew to become a large international concern; by 1988 it had a turnover of £25 million and exported 15 per cent of production outside the UK. During his organisation's 1980s heyday, Rogers was described by Judy Rumbold in The Guardian as "the T-shirt king", although his company was almost as ubiquitous for its knitwear, supplied to retailers such as TopShop, Miss Selfridge and John Lewis. Fashion journalist Brenda Polan described Rogers as: "one of Britain's most successful manufacturers of mass-market fashion, supplier to most of the zippy low-cost chains". Early career Jeffrey Rogers began his career as a lift boy in Owen Owen's Finchley store. He then moved on to the role of floor sweeper in a coat factory. His first move into fashion proper was working for the brand Jump, owned by Louis Caring. He established his own company, Jeffrey Rogers, in a Soho basement in 1974, initially with a team of three people. 1980s expansion The Jeffrey Rogers brand specialised in producing mass-market products for distribution to major high-street chain stores. Prices were competitive and by 1985, the company had a workforce of 350. Rogers told an interviewer in 1988 that his brand was producing 25 million T-shirts a year. His was the brand that created a ubiquitous RELAX T-shirt design in 1984 worn by Frankie Goes to Hollywood fans; as Judy Rumbold noted in a 1988 interview: "Which came first, the record or the t-shirt? Rogers is studiedly vague". Rogers' specialism was producing garments that were on trend for high-street shoppers, as he said: "There are five or six garments that everyone wants each season and we've got to make sure we make at least three or four of them".