Kirk & Kirk
Luxe eyewear brand Kirk & Kirk sets their sights on a bigger and brighter future with the support of Let’s Do Business Finance.
Kirk Eyewear (trading as Kirk & Kirk) hails from Brighton, and has secured a £150k loan through the Recovery Loan Scheme (RLS), to enable them to cement their place in the UK market with vibrant pop-up stores and to grow their team.
Offering unique and timeless eyewear that is suitable for every gender and every occasion, Kirk & Kirk have cornered their market. The only brand in the world to create handmade frames and sunglasses from lightweight and colourful acrylic, their eye-catching designs enable wearers of their frames to express their personality first, without compromising on quality. The company is fronted by Jason and Karen Kirk, and their ethos for Kirk & Kirk eyewear has focused on traditional values and innovative materials from the get-go. To date, the popularity of Kirk & Kirk has amassed over 400 independent stockists of their frames worldwide, with operations spanning the UK, the USA and Europe.
Growing up surrounded by optics, Jason founded the brand with wife Karen in 2013 after rediscovering his grandfather and great uncles’ frame designs that dated back to the 1920’s, motivated by a desire to innovate and inspire the wearers of their frames. More than a century and three generations later, the brand was reborn with a modern twist, and still stands on those same foundations developed through Jason’s family all those years ago: attention to detail, thinking outside the box, and always bringing an element of excitement to the optics industry.
“At its core, Kirk & Kirk is a business run by a family with optical passion coursing through their veins, and integrity and pride in every frame they produce.”
Kirk & Kirk’s edge is their ability to combine lightweight and comfortable design with a spectrum of colour and shape. Their frames are produced from an acrylic that they developed themselves; this innovative move enabling them to create a lightweight feel and yet an incredible durable quality to their product, which isn’t available anywhere else on the market.
This unique acrylic material also allows designer Karen Kirk to have complete design freedom when creating new styles, as well as an endless array of colours to choose from, with her designs coming to life when the frames are handmade in a factory in the north-west of France, while Jason Kirk takes care of the business side, and has regular visits with their factory to ensure the highest quality for every customer.
Since its launch, Kirk & Kirk was an immediate success; and now in 2022, has regular features on the red carpet being worn by celebrities such as Robert Downey Jr and Samuel L. Jackson, and is now sold in more than 40 countries and counting. Despite the COVID19 pandemic, the brand saw an excess of 40% year on year growth – something which Jason thought may have something to do with the increase in Zoom calls, and people picking colourful and stand-out glasses to add some personality to the new digital way of working. Their virtual try-on feature on their website saw a boom in popularity during the pandemic too, with up to 6,000 using the feature a week to take their frames for a spin.
“Most people have been having conversations over Zoom and FaceTime and so glasses become almost the only way of expressing yourself through clothing. More people turned to bigger glasses, more expressive glasses and more colourful glasses to invest in themselves.”
Eyes on the possibilities, the world opening back up again provided the opportunity for pop-up shops to showcase their products in major cities and towns, as well as their new sunglasses range for 2022, the first opening in Redchurch St, Shoreditch in September 2022.
Wanting to continue the snow-ball effect of their increasing popularity from the last few years and create a household name out of the brand, the team at Kirk & Kirk reached out to Let’s Do Business Finance to seek support in expanding their operations, and in applying for business finance from the Recovery Loan Scheme.
The Recovery Loan Scheme, first launched in 2021, is a government backed loan scheme that provides access to finance for UK businesses as they recover from the COVID19 pandemic, to enable them to grow. Providing loans of up to £10 million over a maximum of 6 years, the loans can be used for anything from managing cash flow, investment in operations to growth.
“Working with Let’s Do Business was a pleasure. The process was thorough and professional throughout.”
The scheme, now extended as of August 2022, allowed British Business Bank accredited provider and Community Financial Development Institution Let’s Do Business Finance to provide a loan to Kirk & Kirk of £150k, which they plan to utilise across the business to invest in their working capital in anticipation of further growth, through employing a new Head of Digital and an additional admin employee to keep up with demand. The funds are also planned to be used to continue to innovate their website to provide an even better experience for their customers, which will work in conjunction with increased interest for the brand following the opening of their two pop up stores in 2022.
“Our plan is to be nimble and grow pop-up stores. We then expect to open half a dozen stores next spring in different locations across the UK and then from that will identify opportunities abroad.”