Fugg-Lore
I know why you’re here. You know why you’re here. Don’t deny it.
It’s for the Fuggler lore, isn’t it?
Why else would a person like you be in a place like this?
Fine. Grab a seat, and I will up-end my metaphorical handbag and dump out a bunch of Fuggler facts. Have a rummage. Maybe it will help you win a very niche pub quiz some time.
I’m an Amazon Associate, so if you click an external link and make a purchase I earn some money.
(Send people to Amazon for free? In this economy?)
No attention span for words? Jump to the gallery. Are they in chronological order? Sweetheart, no. They are arranged by unimaginative file name or whichever order I found them on my PC, hidden several layers deep in old folders that were labelled with really unhelpful things like “done”, “more done” and “old stuff”. There may be duplicates. Some will have visible cat hair in them. Others will have terrible instagram filters on them. (Yes, I do need to clean my phone lens.)
The Fuggler Story
Once upon a time my husband told me I needed a hobby.
Weeks later, as I happily crammed false teeth in the face of a plushie, I suspect he had regrets.
It started with a story I told myself. It was December 2010, and I was Christmas shopping. I had reached the stage where I had run out of inspiration, and was just dumping words I associated with people into eBay.
My husband is a lifelong Jaws fan. “Jaws”. “Sharks”. “Shark’s teeth”. “Teeth”.
Teeth.
There it was. A listing near the top of the page.
A ziplock sandwich bag, full of false teeth.
I couldn’t move past it. My brain was stuck. What type of person buys a bag of loose teeth? What did they do with them? My imagination rushed to fill the gaps. A little old lady sat at home, quietly crafting. No… A little old lady at the village craft fair. Setting up, smoothing out her table cloth with unsteady hands. Attendees walking in, past shell covered jewellery boxes and home made lavender soaps and jams of dubious consistency and there she is, this little old lady. There they are. Plump soft bear bodies. Haphazard stitches. Human looking teeth. She’s smiling, this little old lady, so happy and so proud, showing the world the creatures she’s made and not once noticing the way people take an instinctive step back.
It made me laugh so much I bought the teeth.
I wanted to share the story in my head. Make it real. I decided to carve out a corner of the internet, and sit there, waiting for people that took a wrong turn. Greet them with a big smile and a floral table cloth and toothy creations. Hope someone out there found it as funny as I did.
But first I had to make the creatures.
There were six in the first batch, a number chosen for no greater reason than the fact there were six sheets of felt in the cheapest felt bundle I could find. I decided they needed a collective name, and I chose “Fugglers”. It felt like a homage to the creature horror films of the 80’s I grew up on, and even better, had practically no digital footprint. I claimed the name as my own, made a shop banner in MSPaint, and set up a store on Etsy.
Then… I waited.
A little background anecdote (stay with me here). In the 90’s, my secondary school arranged to send clothes to Romanian orphanages. There had been a spate of news coverage and documentaries about the terrible conditions they were living in. Children shown in rags, or less. Our textiles class was rallied, materials were gathered, and sewing machines readied. For weeks we feverishly stitched as many outfits as possible.
My teacher decided, on balance, it would be kinder not to give orphans the clothes I had made. I was sent home with my work in a knotted plastic bag, like a dog owner whose pet had mysteriously pooped lopsided dungarees.
The very first Fugglers were listed at £12.50 each. This is simultaneously very cheap, and outrageously excessive. They were bad. Not false modesty bad, give me compliments bad, but plain old fashioned awful.
My sewing skills had not improved since the 90’s. They looked like they were made by someone who had never seen a plush doll before, and had only ever overheard second hand descriptions of them in a noisy pub. One of the original Fugglers even boasted a moustache made from a smear of cat hair. It didn’t matter. Fugglers were a joke to be found. A story to become a part of.
So it was very confusing when they started to sell.
Bemused, but not willing to let the joke die, I bought more materials. Replenished the stock with new characters. Up went a new listing, only to be followed by a sale notification. On and on this cycle went. Disclosure: I am not cut out for tedium. If you tell me to practice something until I improve I will howl and then slither out of my chair like someone stole all my bones. It turns out I can, however, be deceived into improvement by a constant churn of sales. A community grew around Fugglers, and like a donkey chasing a carrot on a stick I was trained by social media likes and Etsy notifications; quietly dropping designs that didn’t land, learning what ideas connected with people, improving all the while. The landscape shifted, and the people that had originally followed me for the story were joined by those who loved the new and improved creations.
I will be the first to admit it - I am not a situationally aware woman. It took me nearly two years to realise I’d accidentally started a business. In 2012 I left my glamourous job selling toilets, and became a full time Fuggler maker.
Of course, I can’t pretend Fugglers were universally loved. Like the original story that played out in my head, there were those that recoiled when they saw them. However, those people shared my posts just as much as those that loved them, and their disgust was a fire the Fuggler community gleefully stoked. It was an explosive combination. Social media rocket fuel.
Over the next few years Fugglers flourished online, and occasionally spilled out into the real world. Truth and fiction didn’t so much blur as become a bug splat on the windscreen. Local Fox News channels in the US ran a slot discussing them. Loose Woman in the U.K. spent time on the subject, looking several shades of upset at the “real teeth”. Fugglers even appeared in the newspaper my parents read every morning (and their cats use as litter tray liner every evening).
As a side note, if you ever want your trust in mainstream news rattled, try having articles written about your work. No such thing as bad publicity, eat it up, thank you for the sales, but realising that some mainstream news sites use MEMES as an unchecked source was quite something.
Going viral is obviously the dream for a business. However when there’s just one chaotic woman responsible for answering emails, running social media, filing taxes (dry heave at the fact I was forced to do spreadsheets), and making everything by hand in the spare bedroom, going viral can be a little hard to steer.
In 2017 I was contacted by an agent, and I was ready for a change. My waiting list had grown to 16 weeks, and I was constantly having to close the books just to catch my breath. Somewhere along the line I’d turned myself into a miniature factory when the joy was tied up with the stories and new creations. I was also what is best described as “extremely pregnant”, which is the stage where your feet start to spread like ice cream dropped on hot pavement, and you begin worrying about raising a child in a house full of loose teeth.
When the offer came in to sell the Fuggler brand, I took a deep breath and accepted.
In 2018, Fugglers set off for the new home with Spin Master Toys.
Skip to present day, and my weird little babies have flourished since leaving home. Fugglers are now manufactured by Zuru Toys, managed by Libertas Brands, and are busy on far grander adventures than I could have ever imagined. Recently they have been cross breeding with brand giants like Jaws, Spongebob Squarepants, DC superheroes, Lord of the Rings, Gremlins, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. There are farting Fugglers, baby Fugglers, Fuggler figurines, Fuggler hoodies, posters, keyrings, cards, backpacks. While I can’t claim any stake in their ongoing success, like a proud parent I love watching them grow.
Fuggler Facts
The famous Mr Buttons was originally sold as a “Uncle Squeezy”on March 15th, 2011. It was later added to the store in June 2012 as a customisable varient. The name Mr Buttons was given to it by the internet, and rather than fight the tide I took the hint.
The equally famous Menacing Fuggler design was first sold as “Reggie” on the 21st of October, 2011.
The staring bear was introduced in December 2012, for no greater reason than the fact I discovered reborn doll eyes and felt a compulsion. Many of my designs were triggered by finding props or new accessories (see also: The Time Everything Had Tiny Foam Hats or Once I Added A Realistic Fake Tongue And It Was A Step Too Far)
There was A Brief Time Where Everything Had Tiny Foam Hats but then I ran out of tiny foam hats and it all came to an abrupt halt.
One time I added a realistic fake tongue to a Fuggler. It was a step too far and I apologise.
The original Etsy banner for the shop was made in MSPaint. Eventually one of my customers held an intervention and made me a far better banner. You will struggle to tell the difference but if you look really closely you might be able to tell which one I made and which one she made.
Sexy Beasts became one of my top selling designs when they were introduced in September 2013, but they only came to exist because I have a terrible sense of scale. I’d ordered a bulk load of teddy bear pants online, not realising until they arrived that they were far too big. Rather than be lumbered with lots of small but not small enough pants, I arranged them on a sheet of card and designed a plushie to fill them. Bonus fact: I used to post them to America with a pack of love heart sweets tucked in the underwear, but the FDA tapped me on the nose with a rolled up newspaper so I had to stop.
The butt-hole buttons were introduced in Feb 2015. I didn’t want to sew labels in and ruin the silhouette, but I did want a way to “sign” my work after registering the trade mark.
Additional bonus fact: I ordered 5,000 buttons, and had to provide a pantone reference for what colour a butt-hole button should be. I crowd sourced the decision on the final colour by asking friends/family on Facebook. Peak 2015 social media usage.
The distinctive Fuggler packaging started in July 2015. Before that I would send them cocooned in bubble wrap in a plain cardboard box, and before that I would (very professionally) just cram them in a padded envelope. The only two designs sold without boxes after this point were the Sexy Beast, and the Suspicious Fox, as they were too big.
In The Before Times, there was even merch.
Hat tip to the artists/creators that collaborated with me:
My exceptionally talented brother, Matt
Jamie P
In all the time I was making Fugglers, I only spent £25 on marketing.
Where did it go, you ask?
It went on this advert in the Mother’s Day pull-out section of the local newspaper.
Did it generate sales? No. It did not.
But did the idea of bemused parents adding this to the memory drawer make me laugh?
Yes. Very much.
Fuggler Gallery
A place to peruse Fugglers of a by-gone era.
You’ve reached the end. The Fuggler-fact well has run dry. Maybe prod with me a stick on social media, see if anything new falls out?