One of the most shocking stories you will hear while interviewing some young Italian designers working hard to put together their collections and trying to survive in an unfavourable economy, is that, at some point while putting together a catwalk show to present their collections, some kind of agent, press officer or some other evil force, tried to sell them the latest showgirl highlighting how, to become famous, you must have some kind of celebrity (who is famous for being famous) on your runway. Thank God, most young designers I know turned their back on such suggestions.
Yet what happened at the latest edition of Milan Fashion Week disgusted not only me, but thousands of other Italians. Parah, a swimwear and lingerie brand, asked Nicole Minetti to model for them. As you may remember if you follow Italian politics, Ms Minetti is a dental hygienist turned showgirl on ex-Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's TV channels, who then turned member of Lombardy's regional assembly for Berlusconi's People of Freedom Party. Accused of procuring prostitutes for Berlusconi's (sex) parties, she is currently involved in a trial in Milan related to another trial (I know you've suddenly developed a big headache while reading this...) in which Berlusconi is accused of abuse of office and paying for sex with under age prostitute Karima “Ruby” El Mahroug.
Having turned into an embarrassment for Berlusconi's re-election (please no), she was asked to resign during the summer, but she refused asking for one million euros or for a presenting role on one of the television channels owned by Berlusconi.
Essentially trying to stay in her place until October, when she would become eligible for a very generous regional parliament pension, Minetti - part woman, part victim of a plastic surgery that bizarrely turned all Berlusconi's women into plastic dolls with deformed lips and inflated breasts - happily joined the Parah runway. The regional councillor highlighted to journalists that she was just supporting fashion and made in Italy products, adding that politics must serve fashion (in the same way as she, in her role of councillor, procurer and prostitute, “served” power?), that her main love was politics and that, for her, modelling was just a second job (while we thought her second job was something very very different...).
Desperately ill-suited to politics, Minetti appearing on a runway that shouldn't even exist (swimwear/lingerie are the Cinderellas of the fashion week) showed she doesn't care about decency and has no respect for the court (after all, she is still on trial). Besides, she also gave the final blow to Milan Fashion Week, sadly considered (though this is also the fault of the Italian Chamber of Fashion...) by many foreign journalists/buyers as a conservative fashion capital not capable of keeping pace with trendier cousins such as New York or London (while there are quite a few valid designers also in Milan...).
Despite the fashion scene is a corrupted and stinking sewage, fashion per se is still a very serious business, an industry that employs millions of people all over the world, among them very few highly skilled artisans who are sadly disappearing. In a nutshell fashion isn't a brothel or a funfair, and while you may add that things such as this bring in publicity, Parah has so far only managed to attract extremely negative comments by ordinary people claiming they will never buy again their products (the same reaction many Italian consumers had after seeing the music video advertising Anna Dello Russo's 'collection' for H&M). And while in a way Minetti didn't strut her plastic stuff on the runway of a major fashion house (no way she would have managed to get on Armani or Prada's runway...), shame and disgust still linger in the air, reminding us all that the times we're living in are definitely not for anybody who is into culture, but they are perfect for vapid celebrities, vulgarity and shallowness.
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