EDUN

It’s debatable whether fashion can really provide an effective platform for social change. Still, for the past 6 years, Ali Hewson has made it her business to create clothes that will make a difference. And while most fashion brands aim simply to make the wearer look and feel good, the Edun label, which Hewson started with her husband, U2 frontman Bono, was created with a loftier manifesto in mind: to encourage sustainable trade with Africa. The Dublin-born childhood sweethearts (who started dating when Hewson was just 14) are the parents of four children and have long campaigned against poverty. Their initial concept for Edun was completely idealistic. It was going to be one of the world’s first ethically and environmentally conscious fashion brands, all the materials were going to be organic and there would be employment opportunities for locals. But a few years later, after Hewson, Bono, and their partner, designer Rogan Gregory, had invested millions of their own money, Edun was in enormous debt and owed its shareholders a small fortune. In 2009, powerful luxury goods conglomerate LVMH came to the rescue, buying almost 50 per cent of the company. Now, with new designer Sharon Wauchob on board, and an expanded range of styles and fabrications, the company is poised to not only benefit Africa, but hopefully finally turn a profit. I caught up with Hewson at Holt Renfrew in Toronto a couple of weeks before her recent fiftieth birthday to talk about all that she’s been trying to accomplish in the name of love.
JEANNE BEKER
From Saturday’s Globe and Mail
Published Saturday, Apr. 09, 2011 12:00AM EDT

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JOHANNESBURG (AP) — The Nelson Mandela Foundation on Tuesday distinguished itself from the cutthroat world of fashion by announcing an international clothing line it says makes wearers look good on the outside — and feel good inside.

Profits from Mandela’s project will help sustain the foundation’s charitable gifts, while boosting South Africa’s troubled textile and clothing industry.

With the launch, the foundation joined a small but growing club of socially conscious sartorialists, such as Edun, a line founded by Bono and his wife in an effort to bring a steady, sustainable manufacturing industry to Africa. It also presented a stylish contrast to the storm that enveloped this week’s Paris fashion shows after star designer John Galliano was sacked by luxury line Christian Dior amid accusations of anti-Semitism.

The 46664 Apparel line, to debut in South Africa in August, featured brightly colored men’s sportswear and intricately patterned, African-influenced women’s wear, all designed by Seardel, South Africa’s biggest textile and clothing manufacturer.

The line is named after Mandela’s prisoner number at the infamous Robben Island Prison, where he was the 466th prisoner in 1964. The anti-apartheid icon spent 27 years in prisons before becoming South Africa’s first black president in 1994.

“You are not just investing in a piece of apparel … you also are investing in a plan that will continue to spread that humanitarian legacy” of Mandela, said foundation board member Achmat Dangor.

He said the 46664 campaign has evolved since its start to raise global awareness and prevention of HIV and AIDS to “confronting and inspiring action to address the broader social injustices in our society.”

Seardel CEO Stuart Queen pointed to special touches in the clothing — colorful African shweshwe cloth discreetly lining the waistband of a pair of pants and chinos closed by two brass buttons and one red button, all branded with 46664.

“Everywhere you look, there’s a surprise,” Queen told journalists.

Golf shirts and jerseys carry a small embroidered upheld palm symbolizing Mandela’s hand and also alluding to his 2008 passing of the baton with a call for “new hands to lift the burdens.”

But as with all fashion, the line is not wholly without controversy. When the brand is launched in South Africa in August, a T-shirt will cost about 180 rand ($26). A man’s collared shirt runs about 600 rand ($86) — prices prohibitive for the majority in South Africa, where the minimum wage for a farm worker is R1,300 (less than $200).

The clothing will be sold at its own store, to be opened August in downtown Johannesburg, as well as at branches of upmarket Stuttafords department store.

It also will be available online, for sale internationally.

Next year, Dangor said, the line will launch internationally, probably in Britain and the United States.

Dangor said Seardel paid the foundation a royalty of R1 million (about $143,000) and the foundation will get a share starting at 7 percent of annual turnover rising to 9 percent.

The money will help the foundation’s sustainability, Dangor said, revealing that last year it had been forced to stop supporting projects in Ghana and Tanzania.

He said Mandela’s image would not appear on any of the clothing — a commercialization some find distasteful.

Mandela has fought law suits to prevent his name being used for commercial gain. His lawyers in 2005 confronted a clothing company that applied to register Mandela’s prison number, 46664, preventing them from doing so.

A more recent controversy erupted last year when Mandela’s family, including eldest daughter Makaziwe and grandson Mandla, launched House of Mandela wines. Many were outraged but Mandela gave the commercial project his blessing.

Copyright © 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.