Thursday, March 13, 2008

Invisible Colours of Benetton


Watch the presentation
Go the website of the campaign
The invisible colours of Benetton

This is from an article which appeared about a year ago on Selvas.org: (translated from Italian)


On 14 February (2007) they came before dawn and asked the forces of nature to work with them, then they established themselves in a community, claiming it back for the ancestors that "lived free on those lands and are now objects in museums and trophies of a culture that destroys anything which is different." The Mapuche are back to occupy the land that they demanded for years and that is part of the large estate of Benetton in Argentinean Patagonia.

On a Mapuche site we read:

The Italian fashion brand Benetton is well known for it's 'provocative'
promotion campaigns that appear to be socially critical.
But the internationally operating company is itself involved in dirty deals.
In south Argentina, Benetton has bought almost one million hectares of land.
The local population, mostly Mapuche indigenous people, are forcefully removed from this area.


Nineteenth century invasions, illegal sales, donations to a nobel prize... A true South American soap opera. To understand more, you can do a simple search on google: "Benetton vs. Mapuche". And read.
Benetton clothing is beautiful and relatively inexpensive, but what's behind that cotton or wool?
It doesn't matter how much you wash them, certain items will never be clean.

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