Get your kit on for the lads

THIS could be one way of dragging your partner away from Match Of The Day. A Scottish lingerie firm has produced an eye-catching range of ladies’ underwear designed to send temperatures soaring off the pitch.

Edinburgh online company FLuk has just delivered its first order of 1,200 bras, thongs, briefs, suspenders and stockings in the colours of Tottenham Hotspur.

The north London Premiership club is now selling these across its four Spurs shops and online.

The result brings to fruition an idea first suggested two years ago by Enkhe Harper to her husband Nigel, who runs the company.

She took some of her inspiration from American singer Katy Perry, who bedazzled her future husband Russell Brand by sporting a basque in West Ham colours, his favourite team, at the 2009 MTV music awards.

The company has now produced a sample range in the colours of the East London team, as well as high-flying Premiership clubs such as Liverpool and Newcastle United, and is hoping to win supply contracts with other teams. Rangers, Celtic and other top Scottish sides have yet to express an interest.

Harper said: “Once we had a look around, we were amazed that no-one had done anything like it before. There is really nothing else like this out there.”

Harper believes most clubs have yet to embrace the potential for officially endorsed underwear for ladies. Spurs bras sell for £30, suspender belts for £20 and knickers and thongs for £10, and they appear to have a ready market. Stocks of bras – adorned with a club badge – are disappearing fast, according to the club website’s sales monitor, although it gives no hint as to whether it is male or female fans doing the purchasing.

With samples of the Spurs lingerie to hand, Harper is now planning to visit other London clubs such as Chelsea, which has expressed an interest in the line, within the coming weeks.

Harper conceded that some clubs had expressed reservations about the nature of the product, and how they might display it in their shops. However, he points out that lingerie is becoming more accessible, with high street shops of various descriptions displaying women’s underwear without criticism.

“Some of them have a view that it is not in keeping with the family image of the club, but I think that will change of itself over time,” he said.

Style experts agreed that the range could be a hot seller. Mary McGowne, founder of the Scottish Style Awards, said: “It is possibly not a surprise that some clubs would not want to be associated with this style of merchandise, but it is what it is.

“The aesthetics of it is no different from what you would see in lingerie shops the length and breadth of the country.”

She added that as a “novelty product” in the lucrative sports merchandising sector, she would expect there to be a healthy market for the FLuk lines.

“I could imagine them selling lots of these for Christmas as a fun and frivolous gift,” she said. “I could see there being quite a demand, and in that context I would expect it to be very successful.”

At the moment, FLuk’s business model relies on selling directly to clubs at the wholesale level. The couple eventually wants to purchase licences that would allow them to sell directly to the public around the world via the internet, though the start-up costs would require outside investment in the company.

“There are different possibilities, but the one we are pursuing at the moment is going straight to the football clubs,” Harper said. “We just want to get established and get into a few more clubs, which would hopefully include a couple of the Scottish ones.”

FLuk – the couple’s acronym for “Football Lingerie UK” – first contacted Tottenham representatives earlier this year at the annual Sports Merchandising & Marketing Exhibition in London.

The club had already carried out its own market research into this area, which revealed demand for officially badged undies among both female supporters and men keen to gift such items to the ladies in their lives.

“It was music to our ears because there we were standing in front of our huge sign that said football lingerie,” Harper said.

The initial response has been positive, he added, and they are now considering adding other lines such as camisoles and bikinis. “Tottenham were very happy, and we are already talking about other items – we are interested in expanding the range,” he said.