Fashion Against AIDS – what do you think?

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15 May 2012
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The Village Noticeboard
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H&M launched its fifth Fashion Against Aids collection this month, raising money and awareness around HIV and AIDS.

The collection carries a distinctive global flavour, with African trims, Maori print, and Navajo influences. Some pieces are not quite the thing you’d be comfortable wearing in front of your grandparents…

Funds raised go to charities Designers Against Aids, MTV Staying Alive Foundation, United Nations Population Fund and YouthAIDS.

If you’re interested in H&M, find out what Katie McCallum made of their ethical policy.

The campaign has drawn out some strong reactions. What do you think of H&M’s Fashion against Aids?

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  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=882465091 James Cobbett

    Tackling AIDS is a brilliant thing. But I can’t help but feel H&M are missing the mark on what their role is. As a big international clothes manufacturer they have a lot of power to effect the lives of the people that work in their factories, making the clothes. The only people that have this opportunity are the clothes manufacturers. There are, on the other hand, a lot of organisations that are already raising money for AIDS work. I’m not saying that there no more help is needed in the fight against AIDS, but if me buying a pair of shorts helps to put money into a AIDS project, but the shorts I’ve just bought were made by a 16 year old working in a sweatshop, what good have I actually done?

    Donating money from a collection to AIDS charities seems like a great way to raise the public image of a company, and possibly even divert attention away from other issues, like the treatment of workers. Maybe thats cynical of me, but in my opinion you need to get your own house in order as top priority.

  • http://twitter.com/IAmKatieLouise Katie McCallum

    My main issue with this campaign is the way it’s been branded. I feel like I put a bunch of thought and energy into supporting H&M in their efforts with the Conscious Collection, and then the FAA campaign was just a whole bunch ‘a kissing! I guess I feel sad that this is the way that big brands like H&M need to market their campaigns, rather than focussing on education around the issue. Are we really so shallow?

    But hey, if they raise loads and loads of money, who am I to complain?!

  • Nicky Doyle

    Although money going towards fighting AIDs is better than no money going towards it, it seems to me like any other ‘genius’ worldy marketing ploy. H&M have branded a campaign that will make people feel like they are doing such a good thing by buying into it, giving shoppers that ‘feel good’ moment so their ‘good deed’ of the day is complete so that they can go on to shop guilt free. It is H&M chasing good publicity. The branding of their campaign is sadly exactly what our society want to see, after looking at their campaign page – the one with all the kisses – I had this feeling that I’d seen the kind of pictures before. I had. For the price of $1 per photo they are getting themselves their very own abercrombie/hollister/jackwills/ralphlauren lookalikeys supporting their FAA by way of makeout photos…
     I guess I just find it disheartening to know that this is what multimillion$ organisations view to be the best branding. I don’t want to know that somewhere I am shopping wants me to put a make out picture online to do my good deed of the day to give $1 more to charity( and weirdly… send a makeout request?!).
    If it is something that the head of H&M are really interested in seeing change implemented and not just gaining publicity then why not donate the money they can obviously afford anyway?