In 2004, former fashion journalist Ninette Murk founded the nonprofit organization Designers Against AIDS (DAA). Its purpose: To raise AIDS awareness in the international media and among the general public, focusing specifically on young people in industrialized countries. It does so by enlisting famous and emerging fashion designers, musicians, artists, and other celebrities to create designs for items such as T-shirts, sweaters, bags, hoodies, condom boxes, ring binders, etc. Ninette crossed paths early on with Base partner Dimitri Jeurissen, who has helped spread DAA’s message through the Base network.
We asked Ninette, to “stop and think” about a few questions that were on our mind.
You were a journalist before you started DAA. What publications did you write for?
Almost all Belgian magazines and newspapers, Dutch, a lot of Japanese ones.
The death of your former assistant, Peter, provoked you to “make a difference” and start DAA? Was it hard at the time to take the plunge?
Not really; it went gradually. I only stopped freelance writing last year when we started with the H&M campaign; until then we needed the extra income. (In fact it was all the income, most of the time.)
In the early days, you called on your network to help you get DAA off the ground. Who were the first to jump in? Was it primarily the Belgians?
First was Umbro by Kim Jones—I did PR for the Benelux and Germany for them at the time—who sponsored the tees, the printing… everything of the first season. As for the designers, Bernhard Willhelm was one of the first, as were Robert Smith from The Cure, Faithless, and Chicks on Speed. None of them are Belgian, although Bernhard trained at the Antwerp Academy.
You also mention that during the early days, you were working several jobs to keep DAA afloat. This proved hard on your family and friends. Did you ever think about throwing in the towel?
Oh yeah, quite a lot. It was stressful sometimes as I did two or three jobs at the same time, and also, the negative attitude of a lot of companies and organizations when we asked for sponsoring/subsidies were hard to stomach. I mean, prevention of HIV is pretty essential everywhere, so why didn’t they see that?
For your signature T-shirts, you have worked with celebrities, fashion designers, musicians. Is there someone you’d like to work with who would add to this mix?
So far, we worked with musicians and fashion designers mainly. I would love to attract a couple of major sport celebrities as these also are personalities that youth looks up to. So if they give out the message that safe sex is necessary and cool, maybe they listen. David Beckham?
Last year, you collaborated with H&M. Can you explain this joint venture? What was it? Was it successful?
As we’re not good at the logistical/production part of fashion—both me and our creative director Javier Barcala are journalists—I figured we’d better contact a company that’s good at that aspect and also attractive to young people. H&M was my number one choice. I called them, explained the concept, and they loved it. We did a great campaign with them, including artists such as Rihanna, Timbaland, Rufus Wainwright, Katharine Hamnett and, at our request, Chicks on Speed. One of the things we always try to achieve is to support emerging artists by “mixing them in” with the bigger names. We also asked H&M to put our logo and website url on all publicity so people would visit our website with practical info on HIV/AIDS. The collection (mainly T-shirts) was sold in 27 countries in 900 stores, and 80% was sold out after a month, which I guess is successful.
Who else do you collaborate with “behind the scenes”, both in and outside the AIDS world?
We have volunteers who help us out at events. Courier Belspeed sponsors our shipments in the Benelux for free and everywhere else at cost. Most fashion fairs give us a booth for free—Bread & Butter Barcelona, Rendez-Vous Paris, Premium Berlin… Our web host, Protagonist, gives us their services for free. Flock, a social networking site, gives us a spot on the homepage and bookmarks of/on their new Fashion Edition. (They recently won a Webby in this category, and beat Facebook!) We have a consultant who also works for UNAIDS, and another one who also advises the Belgian government. Belgian PR companies ask their clients to donate goods or services for our new education center. In fact, everybody reacts favorably when we ask for help.
You are launching a line of clothing at Bread & Butter. Can you talk a little bit about it, conceptually and aesthetically?
As we don’t only want to raise awareness for HIV/AIDS but also for the environment, all our garments are made of organic and/or fair-trade cotton, with beachwear made from recycled PET fabric (read: plastic bottles). Our idea was to make attractive, funky clothes that people wanted to buy, even if they didn’t know DAA and its mission. 25% of the net wholesale price of each garment goes back to DAA for future AIDS awareness campaigns and to help fund our new education center, IHAEC.
How do you see DAA evolving in the years to come?
I hope to reach millions of young (and not so young) people, and make them think about their attitude towards safe sex—and hopefully change it for the better!
You just broke your foot. Do you think Antwerp should get rid of its cobblestones?
No, I think I should work a bit less so that when I go out for a walk, I watch where I put my feet.
Aside from the cobblestones, how is life in Antwerp?
Nice. It’s not too big or unpersonal but not a gossipy village either. OK, there’s some gossip but that’s to be expected of a fashion metropolis (lol).
Do you feel that being based in Antwerp has hampered the growth and/or exposure of DAA?
Not really, as most of our work has been done over the internet. But maybe if we would have been based in a country that has more support for charities—such as the U.S. or the UK—it would have gone a bit faster, I don’t know…
Are you making progress in the fight against AIDS?
Hard to gauge. How do you measure this? I know that a lot of people wear our T-shirts and visit our website, including the DAA page with practical info/facts about HIV in nine languages, but I don’t know if people change their attitude after that. Maybe we should start to sell or give away condoms as well!
Are there times when you feel that it’s too big a fight? And if so, what forces you to persevere?
I felt like that in the last years a lot, but not anymore, since our first collection with H&M. The reason that I persevere is that it’s very much needed that people stop and think about HIV in the industrialized world, and act accordingly. It’s not only happening in Africa—infections are on the rise everywhere again because people get careless, and it’s been 20 years since the last global AIDS campaigns took place. For this reason I think it’d be smart to link up with Product (RED) for instance, as now it’s still perfectly feasible for the public to wear one of their T-shirts (thereby supporting the fight against AIDS, TBC, and malaria in Africa), go out wearing it, hook up with someone, and have sex without a condom. This is just plain wrong. Maybe for a lot of companies it’s a step too far to make their customers think about their own behavior, which is why I’m extra happy with the involvement of H&M. Also, I’m extremely stubborn, or, as designer Raf Simons once remarked: “Ninette is like a pitbull when she has her teeth into something that she thinks is important.” Quite!
For more information on Designers Against AIDS and facts about HIV, please visit www.designersagainstaids.com.
Loading ...
No comments