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IF YOU WANT to sell a few Christmas jumpers, you could do a lot worse than get the lads from One Direction to wear them – on national US television.
That’s the coup that the duo behind Ireland’s Funky Christmas Jumpers pulled off this week, part of a deliberate strategy to get celebrities behind their novelty seasonal knits.
The 7-year-old business is the brain child of Donal McSharry and Fabio Molle, who were on their way back from a “jumper emergency” at band member Niall Horan’s Mullingar home this afternoon.
“The phone’s just been hopping – it’s a tight sales window that we have each year and our goal was to have the entire band wearing our jumpers,” McSharry told TheJournal.ie.
We just pursued our contacts to make it happen. The was about 6 weeks of work involved to get there.”
The band busted out a rendition of Santa Claus is Coming to Town using classroom instruments on NBC’s The Tonight Show with host Jimmy Fallon – with all members except Harry Styles kitted out in the brand’s jumpers.
And the Irish operation was quick to cash in on the publicity – scoring 29,000-odd retweets and 55,000 favourites for this effort:
Funky Xmas Jumpers / TwitterCheck out @onedirection on @jimmyfallon wearing our jumpers pic.twitter.com/nxVsjecrNI
— Funky Xmas Jumpers (@XmasJumpers) December 22, 2014
From there, the band’s global fan base did enough to make sure that message made its way around around the world.
McSharry said he and Molle had been working on a deliberate tactic of targeting stars with their wares over the past few years – and they had built themselves up to be the “celebrity outfitter in terms of the Christmas jumper”.
Golfer Rory McIlroy, and David Beckham and his family are among the celebs who have been on the receiving ends of Funky specials.
Funky Xmas Jumpers / Twitter@BenMallon_NI @BelfastHourNI @ThePottedHen designed in Ireland if that helps and worn by Rory pic.twitter.com/eB4POt9ZWU
— Funky Xmas Jumpers (@XmasJumpers) November 7, 2014
The Late Late Show’s Ryan Tubridy also got behind the fad for St Patrick’s Day. Here his jumper looks suspiciously similar to the one Horan was rocking on TV:
McSharry said he wasn’t worried about the Christmas jumper trend fading – although they were still developing other products to broaden their range.
“Every year somebody tries to doubt us. Well, it get bigger every year. We just keep having a load of fun … first and foremost we try to put smiles on faces.
“We are responsible making marriages happen and for marriage break-ups. The works really.”
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It’s funny how 1D are recognised for everything but their music.
Bad but not as bad as that “role model” miley twerkin Cyrus. Jaysus she is everything that is wrong with the so called music biz.
Ah mileys just a kid. I blame the predators parasites and media that surround her.
Spot on Miley’s a kid but at least she’s not a big a hypocrite as Beyonce and Perry who sing songs about, Jeffrey Dahmer, Shagging, Boozing, Drugs, Birthday Suits, Snooging another Girl etc while Gyrating lewdly on front of arena’s of 6-7-8 year old girls, and then go off and have dinner with Obama or such like.
Fair play to the 2 lads who set it up, i always thought it would be a “one year wonder” but they are still going. It must be tough with xmas jumpers available everywhere now but they seem to be still going. Would love to know they profit vs loss!
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