A 13-Year Journey | Fou Culture

Hey FOUlano! Having a birthday is a great moment, and for US it goes beyond racking up trips around the sun. For those who are Fou at heart, having a birthday means celebrating life, creation, and the beginning of something different.

Let’s think of it this way: a new year is a chance to reinvent yourself and keep building a path toward your dreams. In our case, the adventure began 13 years ago—yes, 13 years—when a pair of dreamers known as Cisco and Moni decided to start their project. Now that dream is running at unstoppable speed. Yes folks, that dream is called FOU, and it has a community that grows more and more every day.

There are many of us Fou who chose to live a life Outside the COmmon, and now, on our 13th birthday, we reaffirm it.

And FOU goes beyond our garments, because we wanted to focus on our customers and give them the freedom to identify with a brand that brings them good vibes, tranquility, and a concept that embraces them.

Let’s get some context!

Before continuing to talk about ourselves, our community, and everything else, we want to tell you about the journey we’ve had in these 13 years, in which the dream of starting down this path became reality. TODAY we are a brand, a community, and above all, a FOU family.

It’s important to say that FOU began with only $80,000 COP. Yes, folks, the desire to show our work was bigger than the desire to make money. And you won’t believe it, but with those 80K we were able to start with none other than 20 printed T-shirts, a perfect number to kick things off in that time.

From the beginning, our concept always was (and still is) to leave a strong message through the silhouette or the print of the T-shirts we designed, with the ultimate goal of identifying every bold CRAZY person who wore them.

"La Negra" Vespa

One of the most beautiful things from that time, and something we still remember with love, is “La Negra,” a Vespa PX150 scooter that started this journey with us, delivering our T-shirts door to door to all the friends and recommended customers who today, more than buddies, are the #amigosfou.

As our warehouse and showroom, we used Cis’ room; the kitchen, meanwhile, was the sales area—always to the rhythm of a tinto made in a stovetop coffee maker.

Another treasured memory is our first design fair, “Alfombra Fckxia,” led by a crazy guy named Mars Arango (@marsarango), art lover and loyal to local design. That opportunity opened our minds to the idea of having a physical store, since the recurring questions at the fair were: Where can I find you? Do you have a physical shop? etc. That was the spark and the trigger to open our first official spot: “Fou Laureles.”

From the beginning, it was a meeting point and the main place to make clients who today are soul friends—clients who were looking for the same thing we were: a message that identified them as a FOU being, a crazy lover of music, art, and life.

We built the first Laureles shop with our own hands, piece by piece, just like we do with every garment that represents us. Now, we can say we have two official ships roaming the city and an Online Ship navigating the internet world, which lets us reach any corner of the planet.

Along the way, it’s worth mentioning we had different logos, all focused on the same concept: “human madness”... but what’s crazier than a UFO? Than thinking about life beyond the clouds and realizing that crazy people always see things others don’t—that options are infinite and everything is possible. That last idea led us to center our latest and most iconic FOU UFO.

And well, foulanos, TODAY, after 13 years, we’re right at the heart of what we’ve always wanted for the FOU brand.

We are two crazies, Cisco and Moni, as many know us—“Los Fou”—designers from Medellín with the desire to interpret the crazy one each person has inside, delivering the message through clothing.

“We don’t design clothes—we transmit a lifestyle through the garments we live in.”