Cheap Monday – the anti religious jeans brand

I come across such fascinating brands travelling for work that I am always intrigued what their history is and how they started and grew. So i thought I would cover an underrated brand every month and delve into their creation and background. I will start with Cheap Monday.

I was first attracted to the very cool Cheap Monday brand on a trip to the freezing capital of the UK, London. They were in one of my favourite shops in London, Urban Outfitters, who specialise in more edgy fashion.

My need for jeans that fit my relatively long (compared to Singaporeans) legs is acute in Asia as it’s harder to find 1) edgy jeans and 2) those that fit me. The very interesting imagery and look and feel of Cheap Monday immediately caught my eye. A trip to their flagship store in London amplified the brand and what it specialised in and what it was known for. It stood out from all their competitors in both its edgy nature, darkness and its simplicity.

It’s all about the skull with Cheap Monday. You will notice on the design above the upside down cross on the forehead, a deliberate challenging statement of anti-Christianity. As an atheist i was intrigued by this niche brand positioning. Anything Fox News criticises is good with me! 

The brand has always been recognised by their followers for the very distinctive logo of a skull, which originally included an inverted crucifix. The designers of the logo, Bjorn Atldax and Karl Grandin, meant it as an anti Christian statement. The design was a representation of how they felt about organised religion — that it was the cause of many wars.

Speaking to The Associated Press, Atldax emphasised, “It is an active statement against Christianity. I’m not a Satanist myself, but I have a great dislike for organised religion.” Atldax insists his graphic designs have a purpose beyond selling denim: to make young people question Christianity.

This of course didn’t go down very well with the church and people like Fox News who only see Christianity as being the answer to everything. The ensuing debate was of course very good for the Cheap Monday brand, a classic tactic, although this appears more sincere then many brands attempt at a controversial brand positioning.

In January 2010, the logo was altered — inverted crucifix was replaced by a single vertical line. I wonder if that was a case of H&M (who bought them – see below) insisting to ensure that there was no backlash in more conservatively religious countries like America in stocking the product.

Fox News actually did run an article stating that this was one of the reasons the Cheap Monday was so popular, saying that anti-Christian jeans were a trend in Sweden I can certainly see the appeal given the rise in atheism across the world especially amongst the younger generation (from Gen X down to Millennials). If H&M did insist on the change it’s a shame, they should have kept to their principles and kept the upside down cross on to make that defining point. But then you sell your brand you have to go with the flow to a degree.

The skull goes hand in hand with the brand’s fantastically dark strapline “Over My Dead Body”. That certainly makes a statement. Combined with the anti-Christian skull that’s a double whammy of darkness. There’s a reason why none of the clothes sold by Cheap Monday are colourful. All black, grey and white.

The whole questioning religion brand positioning is very much part of their marketing strategy, with or without the upside down cross on the skull. A great example is this photo below of their store in Carnaby Street, London that was displayed over Easter. It draws you in on the left with the quote from the bible and then of course hits you with the reality on the right.

For a brand to go out there and do this is pretty bold and will certainly be attractive to target audience and fits perfectly with the skull symbol of course. It will of course also repel others, which will of course increase the appeal of the brand to those who buy into it. They’re clearly not targeting older people who believe in religion and go every week and who wouldn’t (to coin their own phrase slightly) be seen dead in their jeans anyway or in fact any cool and trendy jeans.

“Over My Dead Body” is a fantastic strapline to use to really enhance the brand positioning and works extremely well with the very recognisable skull brand symbol. It’s an out there statement of intent, determination and principle. It very much captures the authority and dark passion of the brand. It’s definitive and very strong in it’s boldness.

Although it was launched as Cheap Monday in 2005 it actually started out in Stockholm, Sweden, as Weekend (see the pattern here!). No great reasoning behind this other than the simple fact that they were only open at the weekend! Due to popularity they then opened every day and had to change their name to Weekdays!

The original concept was high end fashion mixed with 2nd hand jeans. However the creators realised that this was too expensive for the local youth and so created a mid range brand called “Tight”, only available in store. It remains the flagship product name of their, now massive, range of jeans. These are unwashed, stretchy, super tight fitted jeans.

This in turn led to the owners and creators being inspired to create the now famous and infamous skull design. This helped propel Swedish and international success as their reputation for high quality, stretchy ‘Tight” jeans grew. The skull was part of the international appeal.

Only 3 years later 60% of the company was acquired by Sweden’s other big brand (no not IKEA), H&M. I can’t quite see the “satanic” skull branded designs sitting next to H&M’s Disney collection but they clearly saw that they were missing out on a more edgy and design led brand’s market.

Since that point Cheap Monday has grown considerably internationally on the back of H&M’s vast network, finance and credibility. They have an eclectic range of dedicated brand stores in London, Beijing, Shenyang (also China), Paris and Copenhagen. China appears to be a key strategic and volume market for them tapping into the youth’s desire there to be more edgy and different.

They also regularly open up pop stores and distribute through hundreds of department stores and multi channel stores like the Urban Outfittters in London and here in Singapore, Tangs. I find the listing in Tangs ironic given the “satanic skull” brand symbol. Why? Well every Xmas Tangs on Singapore’s famous Orchard Road tend to have a very religious message about God on their storefront rather than the more obvious “come and buy gifts no one wants” message that all the other shops use on Orchard Road. Two examples below: 

This religious positioning clearly comes from the owners and all power to them for following through on their principles and using their signage to remind people about what they believe Xmas should be all about, (while at the same time no doubt still hoping millions of people buy their xmas pressies from their stores of course….).

To then stock Cheap Monday, an anti-religious brand, seems odd, although I doubt they would have looked into such detail or in fact any of the buyers be aware of it. But in very religious, very conservative Singapore (where homosexuality is illegal and gay marriage is opposed by 85% of the population in a recent survey and is therefore a pipe dream) it’s a surprise that they were stocked by this company, the only one in Singapore to stock them.

Only in 2013 did Cheap Monday launch online shopping. This decision was made after the owners noticed that fans were continuously asking for specific places to buy their clothing on the brand’s social media pages. Although their presence on social media is relatively small, it’s growing and has a passionate number of fans actively posting on Instagram, Facebook and other platforms. Their LinkedIn page is though pretty shocking! Certainly compared to parent company H&M.

In May 2011, Hong Kong based womenswear B+AB, launched a designer partnership with Cheap Monday. The collection consisted of distinctive elements which were seen in four sets of collaborative bags, jeans and t-shirts. For their partnership, Cheap Monday’s traditionally monochrome colors like black, white and gray collide with the lively hot pinks, bright blues and crimson hues for which b+ab is known. In addition to clashing color motifs, the t-shirts, jeans and bags included in the b+ab x Cheap Monday collaboration feature Cheap Monday’s signature smiling skull as well as b+ab’s one-eared cartoon rabbit.

In January 2015, Cheap Monday announced another brand collaboration with Teenage Engineering — a Swedish electronics brand company.  Music has always been a part of Cheap Monday and by bringing this product to the market they made it possible for everyone to create their own music in an easy and cheap way.

The ‘Pocket Operators’ are micro synthesizers which enable users to produce and edit their own music from the product’s adjustable sound pad format. Available in three different models; the PO-12 “Rhythm” operator is a drum machine, the PO-14 “Sub” is a bassline synthesizer, and the PO-16 “Factory” operator provides a selection of melodies. All controllers can be used individually or grouped together to produce music from a choice of 16 sounds per console, a 16-step pattern sequencer, two adjustable parameter locks, and a global effect player which also carries 16 variations.

Cheap Monday celebrated its 10th anniversary with “10-Minute pop-up,” an innovative marketing strategy that culminated in the simultaneous grand opening of 10 pop-up stores in 10 major cities. The brand launched a voting poll for this to decide which 10 locations to pick. Through one day fans were able to vote for their favourite cities. The winning cities included: Hong Kong, Seoul, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Paris, London, Berlin, Antwerp, Madrid and Copenhagen.

The brand’s fast growth has not deterred it from its original idea: to offer customers pieces that compete with high-end brands both in attitude and fashion, as well as quality and selling it at an extremely good price.

On their website they do claim that “We started our business in a simple way, but with deep values and beliefs. These values were a part of who we were, and they guided our actions. Our values are about being daring, taking initiative and choosing our own path. But we also value the strength of partnerships and cooperation”.

I like the fact that they have a code of conduct for their suppliers too:

• No child labour
• No forced, bonded or prison labour
• No discrimination
• No excessive working hours
• Payment of at least the minimum wage
• Safe and healthy working conditions
• A legally binding employment contract
• Freedom of association
• We say NO to sand blasting

They have similar policies on chemicals, the environment and even talk about the UN’s directive on Human Rights and working with other UN, global and Swedish organisations to preserve this and other very on brand policies. Admirable even to the point of unannounced inspections of suppliers. More and more customers care about these kind of things these days so it’s great to see them living their brand in reality behind the scenes too.