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prada fashion show target of pracarity action in Milan

n | 21.02.2005 21:18 | Culture | Social Struggles | London | World

Monday 21st, Milan Italy

Milans fashion week looks set to be plagued by protests this week. Today, animal rights activists targeted Pradas store in Milan to highlight the cruelty of the fur industry. In the evening Prada was again targetted, this time by protesters drawing attention to the issue of chainworkers and parcarity within the fashion industry...

The snow was falling on the queues outside the Prada fashion show when the sound system drove up. The canvas backed truck led a thirty strong group of protesters and smoke flares appeared from nowhere. Green and red smoke wafted over the crowds and into the venue. Security personal could be seen speaking rapidly into their radios and few police officers looked on but did not attempt to interfere. The assorted fashion groupies, journalists, columnists, buyers, wannabes etc. looked up from under their umbrellas to see what the fuss was all about.

A swarm of protesters handed out leaflets to the people they could reach and tossed handfuls high in to the air so as to reach the people in the centre of the huddle around the entrance. From the back of the truck a banner was hung and the night was lit by the flashes of cameras as the attending press started to take an interest in what was going on.

All around; security, cops, journalists, and the various flavors of fashion groupies could all be seen reading the weighty activist texts. Another few bundles were tossed into the air above the crowd and the sound system moved off leaving a bemused crowd and the threat of further interventions against the fashions shows during the rest of the week.

Top on the list of designers likely to recieve the attentions of the gathering activists will be the young anglojapanese, Serpica Naro ( http://www.serpicanaro.com/). The Tokyo based designer has earned a reputation for consistently pushing at the boundaries of fashion but has angered many for her soleless expropation of counter culture.

The fashion industry itself is accused of many things from encouraging unsustainable consumerism, to utilising child, bonded and sweatshop labour.

Further actions in Milan this week seem certain...

Translated quotes taken from the distributed leaflet  http://italy.indymedia.org/news/2005/02/734129.php ...

"We will defy the week of the fashion, its real and virtual suggestions and its stages."

"We will prevent to costoro of impossessarsi of our roads and the imaginary ones that are fruit and projection of our desires."

"The place (Milan) and the shapes (the precarieta) of this challenge have been established not by us, but we therefore reserve the right to choose the times and the ways!"

Further info sources quoted on the leaflet,
 http://www.sanprecario.info
 http://www.chainworkers.org  http://reload.realityhacking.org
 boccaccio@autistici.org

Activists from London and Barcelona also attended the Prada action in Milan, reflecting the globalisation of protest on the issue of 'fashion'. Last week saw London fashion week and it was also accompanied by protests and a counter event called 'conscious fashion week'(www.conscious-fashion.co.nr) that was held at the rampART social centre in east london (www.rampart.co.nr).

In September there will be mobilisations in Barcelona and also during the Paris Fashion Week.

n

Comments

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fashion

22.02.2005 09:49

the fashion industry represents the height of consumerism. it's not just clothes - there's lots of kinds of fashion. but it's all about buy buy buy.

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report of anti fur action against prada in milan

22.02.2005 20:06

FASHION: PETA BLITZ FROM PRADA IN MILAN AGAINST FURS
(AGI) - Milan, Italy, Feb 21 - Activists belonging to PETA (People for Ethical Treatment of Animals) raided the Prada boutique in the Vittorio Emanuele Gallery in Milan. Provokingly covered in blood, they brought signs in Italian and English "Death for sale" and protested in the shop windows reporting "the massacre of millions of animals used for fur 'fashion'" and urging the operators present at the Milan fashion week to not create and wear furs. Lisa Franzetta, responsible for PETA's fur campaign said "it is not the first time that PETA demonstrates against Italian fashion designers who create furs. Last winter, PETA Vice President Dan Matthews, dressed as a priest, threw the Gianfranco Ferre' fashion show into confusion and in the same days two other activists showed their signs against furs in the Dolce e Gabbana fashion show. During Milan's fashion week, there will also be the "Peta - Fashion Police": breathtaking girls in miniskirts and high heels that will rebuke all those who will wear furs in occasion of the events that, in all Europe, this month to be connected to fashion week, emphasizing that furs were created by animals who were massacred expressly". (AGI) .
211629 FEB 05

peter