Politics on the Runway

Designer Guglielmo Mariotto took politics center stage earlier this week at his show for the Gattinoni label when he put Sudanese-born model Clara Benjamin in a ball gown with “No” written in bold red letters over a picture of the Austrian far-right Freedom Party leader, Joerg Haider.

The fashionistas applauded the “anti-Haider” protest as Benjamin paraded down the catwalk in the gown’s floor-length skirt, which also showcased a swastika next to Haider’s mug.

The design was Mariotto’s protest against the presence of Haider’s party in Austria’s ruling coalition.

Benjamin, who was raised in London, told the Reuters news agency that when the designer asked her to wear the skirt, “I said ‘yes’ right away due to the fact that I’m African, but I grew up in Europe. I have family in Austria so it is something very personal for me.”

Gattinoni’s show also featured a glamorous collection highlighting the house’s relationship with Hollywood. During the 1960s, the fashion house dressed Ava Gardner and Ingrid Bergman when they came to Italy to work on films.

The show’s finale took a Hollywood turn with the appearance of a hunky male model in a white angel’s gown. Suddenly a woman bolted from the audience and jumped onto the runway, shouting and slapping the cowering model, who fell to the floor. The woman then fainted into the arms of another man.

High fashion or high drama? Both, for sure, since it was all make-believe. Actress Marisa Berenson played the screaming, fainting woman in the scene, filmed for the remake of the flick “Blue Angel.”