'Designers against Aids'

[freefashion]

Hi, My name is Ninette Murk and I'm founder and creative director of 'Designers against Aids', a charity fashion brand based in Antwerp, Belgium with the aim to raise aids awareness among young (and young at heart) people. We do this by asking fashion designers, musicians and other artists to create a print for a T-shirt and we sell those in stores all over the world. 50% of the proceeds of the sales go to aids charities. Far more important though is the media attention we get this way (yes, there ARE good ways to 'use' celebrities after all;- this way a lot more people get to hear about us than just fashion lovers who happen to see the T-shirts somewhere. After all, we'd rather have people use their money to buy protection against HIV than spend it on fashion items- not very commercial, but in our case, the truth and nothing but the truth. You can read more about our work and planned events (such as our upcoming party at club Café d'Anvers on June 21st with Alex Murray-Leslie of Chicks on Speed as one of the DJ's and our collaboration with Belgian Popline, as a result of which, 10 very special designs by musicians will be for sale on the biggest popfestivals in Belgium this summer, such as Rock Werchter, Pukkelpop, Dour and I Love Techno), check out the links to local aids organisations and see some of the T-shirts on www.designersagainstaids.com. They include new designs by Rogan Gregory, Bernhard Willhelm, Katharine Hamnett, Playboy, Agatha Ruiz de la Prada, Chicks on Speed and Christophe Coppens that will be for sale in shops such as Colette in Paris from July onwards. On the site we've also put pix from our first collection again, including Marina Yee (one of the Antwerp Six), Faithless, Robert Smith of The Cure, Scissor Sisters, again Bernhard Willhelm, The Cardigans and more. We still have a couple of those shirts in our office here, so if you'd like to purchase one, drop us a line.
Please feel free to send me your ideas and comments (for instance, which designers do you think we should approach next?) and thanks for your support already!

 

[Baizilla]

Promotion and advertising are usually not allowed, however we will make an exception, because it is for charity.

 

[Baizilla]

It is a very interesting project... I like the Henrik Vibskov tee.

 

[softgrey]

cool...
welcome to tFS......

 

[Scott]

Hi Ninette

Glad you found your way here...and thanks for posting this.

 

[ShesElectric]

Kenneth Cole would do it in a heart beat. I'm thinking so would Gaultier.


I would love to purchase one of those shirts!


THE DESIGN BY ROGAN!

 

[Pastry]

hi, i'll be another mod to welcome you to tfs..and i think this is genuinely nice.. almost makes me wish i was a designer, i'd love to design a t-shirt..

 

[saad]

I had heard about DAA from a friend earlier and thought it was a very interesting project. I'll forward the link to all my friends and business associates

I too wish I was an established designer so I could design something for you guys

 

[Spacemiu]

DAA is very inspiring and very cool

 

[freefashion]

Thank you for all your kind replies (and hello Scott!)- I figured that The Fashion Spot has so many readers, something good has to come out of this. For fashion designers and other creatives it's a good (and easy to do) cause to be associated with and I find that it's the ideal way to reach young people. In fact I'd have to do the same thing on some major boards for music lovers, as we have so many of those designing shirts too (besides the ones I mentioned already also Peaches, Miss Kittin, Vive la Fête and hopefully Gorillaz) but I don't know my way around there except MySpace, so if any of you know some good sites, I'd be grateful for the suggestions.
If any of you likes one of the t-shirts from the first collection, you can order them from us, the pictures are back on the DAA website now; they're 40 euros plus postage & shipping each. For me it's the ideal way to combine my fashion network (been working as a fashion writer for more than 15 years now) and a charity that's very close to my heart. Fashion gets enough bad rap as it is, right?

 

[freefashion]

Oh and for ShesElectric: we don't have any stores in Canada or the US, which is a bit strange since for next season (A/W 06-07) next to Rogan Gregory we also sell a design by Playboy which really is cute and to the point (and conceptually a very good partner for DAA). So you'd have to go to France (Colette in Paris), Germany, Belgium or Japan for your T. We sincerely hope that we have some US stockists for S/S 07 but somehow aids activism got put on the backburner there, or maybe people feel that if they support Project Red they've done their bit. I respect Bono a lot for the work he'd doing for Africa, but we want to warn people that hiv/aids can be found much closer to home as well- and at least we can protect ourselves against it! It's amazing how nonchalant a lot of 'western' people are nowadays when it comes to protection. The generation that was so vigilant about it in the 80's has iether died or has a major burn-out and the younger ones think that if they do get infected, they just pop a little pill and can live to become 90. How ignorant can you be? We believe we can reach these young people easier with items designed by fashion & music celebs than with newspaper articles and flyers. OK, I'll stop preaching right now;-)

 

[tott]

Somebody needs to preach...

It's too true that people nowadays seem to think of AIDS like an allergy almost, a nuisance, instead of a deadly disease...

 

[freefashion]

I wonder why it is so hard to find stores in the US wanting to sell the 'Designers against Aids' t-shirts -heel, if we just found one store anywhere in the US willing to stock 10 shirts, we could approach the press there. But maybe I shouldn't be so surprised, seeing that the Bush administration is restricting the ways money raised for hiv/aids is being spent, forced by his religious backers. Protection against hiv-infection for them means staying celibate until marriage and afterwards only have sex with your husband/wife - very realistic in Africa, I must say. It even got so bad that organisations applying for US aids funding can't use the word 'condoms' anymore in their aids education programs. This is simply criminal- as if the situation isn't horrendous enough already.

 

[Estella*]

welcome ninette and thanks for bringing this in.
maybe you'd like to add the project to our charity links section as well?
http://www.thefashionspot.com/links/browselinks.php?c=38

 

[freefashion]

hello estella - i just added the link to the charity link section, i hope it's ok like this.

 

[Estella*]

looks fine to me, thank you!

 

[Lena]

hey ninette, good luck with the project.. and lots of kisses from athens

 

[Scott]

That reminds me...I will be ordering a t'shirt asap Ninette

Isn't it sad that the only other person in fashion that's been doing anything is Margiela with his edition t's every season. Got one of those and am most certainly supporting your endeavours Plus,they're really cool too

Have you tried contacting somebody like McQueen about this too? I never remembered to ask you that before. Fashion-wise,perhaps,if his name is involved it would get the shops in the US interested? Maybe the Boudicca and/or Preen designers too(they often contribute to OxFam) since they have a bit of a following?

 

[Ghost]

good luck

 

[Mathewthew]

I can find in at Hong Kong....
I'm supirse that I dont know...
I should go and check it out...I really like some of them~yeah