Friday 1st December marks World Aids Day, and to celebrate model Naomi Campbell and designer Marc Jacobs are teaming up on a limited-edition T-shirt to raise money for the United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, an organisation supporting people living with or are affected by HIV.
“Naomi’s long history of commitment to humanitarianism is both remarkably commendable and genuine,” Jacobs tells WWD. “I was honoured to be asked by her to collaborate on this T-shirt in support of UNAIDS as a continued effort to raise awareness for this globally important cause.”
Jacobs and Campbell worked together in 2008 when the model posed for Jacobs’ “Protect the Skin You’re In” campaign to bring awareness to skin cancer. Campbell came up with the idea to work together on a tee to benefit HIV after she attended a World AIDS Day event at the United Nations last year, and according to WWD, when she called Jacobs to see if he was interested he said, “‘Absolutely, I want to do this.’” The T-shirt will retail for $55 (£40), and beginning Friday, be available at Marc Jacobs stores and online.
“It’s not about being in the fashion world — I could be in any world,” she tells WWD of her philanthropic work, “It’s how I feel as a person, as myself, Naomi. That’s how I got to meet an iconic person like [former South African] President Nelson Mandela, who taught me and explained to me the importance of giving back and I had an understanding of it. I wasn’t quite sure when I started when I was 23 what I was doing, but I liked doing it and that’s how it began.” This is certainly an initiative we hope becomes a trend in the fashion industry.