Benetton: 50 years from thought-provoking to empowering

Being inspired by the fashion world is quite common, colours and textures open our minds. But when the inspiration comes from the social and cultural impact of fashion, well, the result is even more extraordinary. Benetton celebrates women around the world with the initiative ‘Women Empowerment program’, which aim to change women’s life around the world in five key areas: violence, education, healthcare, discrimination and livelihood. A 2 million euros ambitious project even for a global brand that has changed the history of knitwear and marketing in the 80s and 90s. The programme will start in Asia, focusing on the textiles industry’s workers, coordinated by a Sustainability Committee. A mixed and diverse committee formed by local organisation that will address the main issues around the 5 key areas of the project. “Once we have selected our partners, we will launch specific programmes with set objectives” which will be independently monitored and measured over three years, Gianluca Pastore, the Global Communication Director explained. “We will use all our digital properties to report on what we are doing.”

Along with this great campaign, Benetton celebrates its 50^th anniversary, launching 4 new collections, inspired by the brand history and archives. The first one is Heritage, already available in the stores, that proposes again sweaters from the 1965. In December will be the time for Technique, Color in February and Performance in April. And Performance is the key collection that has already started stimulating our curiosity, as it will be the first sporwear in merino wool of the brand.
‘A collection of us’ celebrates the stories of five different brave women who represent the 5 different decades of the brand and who were involved in the fight for women emancipation and empowerment.  However, the campaign’s approach is really different from the shocking social and political images that we usually associate with the brand. Those campaigns, as John Mollanger explained, ‘were really directed towards awareness. This time around, we have the ambition to have a really strong level engagement’.

Miriam Bakkali