Fat Face is a British lifestyle clothing and accessories retailer, based in Hampshire. It was founded in 1988 by Tim Slade and Jules Leaver as a business selling T-shirts at ski resorts. The company opened its first retail shop in 1993; as of 2014, there were 209 Fat Face stores in the UK and Ireland.

The business was founded in 1988 in French ski resort Méribel by Tim Slade, a former policeman, and business graduate Jules Leaver. The pair bought T-shirts wholesale, had them printed with designs specific to the resort, and sold them to other skiers on the slopes – at first using the proceeds only to fund their own skiing. They spent the following years travelling to different ski resorts, where they continued to produce and sell ski and outdoor-related clothing. In 1993 they opened their first shop, on London’s Fulham Road; they named it “Fat Face” after the Face de Bellevarde slope in Val-d’Isère. In 2000, they sold 40% of the company to Livingbridge for £5 million. In 2005 Advent International, a private equity company bought Livingbridge’s interest in FatFace.

In 2007 Fat Face was acquired, for £360 million, by private equity group Bridgepoint Capital; the sale netted Slade and Leaver £90 million. The company’s sales were badly hit by the 2008 Recession, forcing Bridgepoint to write off half the company’s value, but improved in 2010 and again in 2011, and Fat Face returned to a small profit in 2012. Bridgepoint planned to float a quarter of the company on the London stock exchange in 2014, hoping to raise £110 million, but later cancelled the flotation due to lack of confidence by prospective stockholders.

The Chief Executive is Liz Evans, who joined in March 2019 replacing Anthony Thompson. Evans had previously run Oasis/Warehouse. In 2013 Bridgepoint hired former Marks and Spencer Chief Executive Stuart Rose to be FatFace’s Chairman; Rose replaced Alan Giles as Chairman.

In March 2021 Fat Face revealed to customers and staff that they had been subject to a ransomware attack in January 2021 and paid $2 million ransom to Conti cybercriminals to unlock encrypted data.