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On March 19, on the catwalk of Ukrainian Fashion Week (UFW) 30 leading Ukrainian designers demonstrated joint collection “FASHION AID”, dedicated to the fight against AIDS. Each participant of the project has created one red image. The collection is available here.
22 of March 2007, as a result of the biggest in Ukrainian history charitable auction, organized by Elena Franchuk ANTIAIDS Foundation and Network of People living with HIV/AIDS, 203 260 USD were raised for the needs of HIV positive orphans and their foster families. The participants of the auction were fighting for each lot. As a result – starting prices grew in 128 times during the biddings!
Photo reports of the fashion show and Fashion AID auction you can see here.
At the opening of the auction, Elena Franchuk said: “My foundation has been already working for 3 years. For all this time many people have told me that we have been doing very good and important things. Many of you have been ready to help. Today it’s your chance. You can help. And it’s neither me, nor my foundation needs your help. You can help the smallest and the most fragile ones, you can help those children, who are waiting for your attention”.
The dress, created by Kristina Gusina, was the most expensive and sensational lot of the auction, sold for 55 thousand dollars. Works of Ukrainian Designers have never been sold for such a high price. Starting price of this lot has grown 1 100 times. Dresses of Irina Karavay and Anne Babenko were sold for 24 and 25 thousand dollars. The other dresses were sold for the price from 500 to 15 000 USD. The total sum raised during the bids for 30 dresses summed up to 192 200 dollars.
Irina Danilevskaya, head of the organizational committee of UFW said: “I am happy and proud because the works of our designers were priced so high. For the first time in the history of Ukrainian fashion, such huge sums were paid for the works of our designers. It’s great that designers didn’t take the auction’ biddings as a competition. I am very thankful to all our designers, who made their input for the Fashion AID project. It was great job”.
Those who didn’t participate in the “fight” for designer dresses had a lot of possibilities to make their contribution. The whole exhibition of fashionable and pretty things had been waiting for them and guests and participants of the auction paid for them with pleasure. Children’ paintings – compositions of palm prints, made by HIV positive kids, were the most moving displays of the exhibition. The biggest picture was sold for 1 500 USD. Children clothes, provided by Sela brand, and children shoes, provided by the KIDDITOP trading network were very popular as well. Ten HIV positive orphan kids from Makeyevka and Kiev will get new outfits – set of clothes and two pairs of shoes each. Guests were also buying with pleasure stylish T-shirts and bracelets. 11 060 USD were raised during the auction, out of the biddings.
Totally, at the charity eve there were raised 203 260 USD. ANTIAIDS Foundation is planning to report carefully about each cent raised during the auction.
The demonstration of the Fashion AID collection has become spectacular final point of the next to last day of the jubilee, 20th Ukrainian Fashion Week. Before the show started, guests were at a loss of what was yet to come. In the hall everybody could enjoy the dresses, created by young designers from Contex condoms, promoting the idea of safe sex. Thirty models, representing red images, created by 30 best Ukrainian designers, came out to the red illuminated catwalk. Red color, the symbol of the fight against AIDS, has become the key element not only in images of the collection, but in the logo of the project: the red heart with little rays became a newly fashion symbol of the support of HIV positive people, and a part of the social brand logo Fashion AID, created by Elena Franchuk ANTIAIDS Foundation. All funds raised from the sale of the items, produced under this brand, will be directed to satisfy the most urgent needs of the people living with HIV/AIDS.
The performance was finalized by HIV positive boy and girl, who pulled apart the symbolic curtains, which divided, by the author’s idea, people from the AIDS problem. Behind it, all the participants of the project were standing by created images. The press conference of the designers, Elena Franchuk and the head of the org-committee of the UFW, Irina Danilevskaya, took place after the show.
"The show was dedicated to AIDS problem, - Elena Franchuk, the founder of the ANTIAIDS Foundation said, - and it is very important, that 30 Ukrainian designers stated openly their social position, as millions of young people will pay attention to their opinion. It is of great importance today to attract especially their attention, to save their lives and health".
Brilliant social show was staged by Alexey Zalevskiy. AIDS subject was demonstrated already in his autumn collection, created under the support of Elena Franchuk ANTIAIDS Foundation in October, 2006. Then, epatage entry of the models, with syringes and blown condoms on the heads, was discussed in media for a long time; periodicals, which had never raised the subject before, wrote about AIDS problem (autumn collection is available at the Foundation website – www.antiaids.org in Partnership projects section).Long ago such actions became the compulsory part of the most fashionable events of the year in the west countries. But it is the first step for Ukraine in the attraction of the attention of creative people to AIDS problem.
Participants of the Fashion AID project:
Victor ANISIMOV
Anna BABENKO
Svetlana BEVZA
Kristina BOBKOVA
Anna BUBLIK
Elena BURENINA
Nataliya GLAZKOVA
Anna GLYBINA/ Pavel BAKLAGIN
Elena GOLETS
Victoriya GRES
Kristina GUSINA
Elena DATS
Tanita DALIS
Diana DOROZHKINA
Tatiyana ZEMSKOVA/Alena VOROZHBIT
Elena IVANOVA
Oksana KARAVANSKAYA
Irina KARAVAY
Lesya KIRICHENKA
Lyudmila KISLENKO
Ilona KUTS
Eduard NASYROV
Tatiyana OSTROVERKHOVA/ Victor ZAVADSKIY
Aleksander OCHERETNIY
Liliya PUSTOVIT
Lyudmila SEDLYAR/ Victoriya CHIKULAY
Anna SOSNOVSKAYA
Svetlana TEGIN
Kseniya MARCHENKO
Media-partners of the Fashion AID project: M1, STB, Novy Canal and ICTV TV channels, “Facts” newspaper, “Thing”, “Focus” and “Personal Time” magazines, PR-agency “New Image Ukraine”.
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