If recent reports are to be believed, the ‘newest’ face to hit Spring’15 runways will be Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. The Australian whistleblower will make his catwalk debut at London Fashion Week this September for Vivienne Westwood‘s son Ben Westwood. Assange has been seeking refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in London for the past two years to avoid extradition.
To avoid putting his freedom at risk, the show will be brought to Assange at the embassy where he will join six models on the runway wearing Ben Westwood’s designs dedicated to none other than Julian Assange himself! Westwood Jr. has been inspired by Clint Eastwood’s The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (and indirectly by Assange’s plight) and will be featuring a Julian Assange print along with combat fatigues as part of the collection. It is rumored that George Clooney and his fiancee (and part of Assange’s defence team) Amal Alamuddin will be attending the show
Support for the Wikileaks founder runs deep in the Westwood veins – Two years ago Dame Vivienne designed an ‘I am Julian Assange’ TShirt, who’s proceeds went towards funding the organization. She caused quite a controversy as the T-shirts were given to her front row to wear at her spring 2013 show
Fast Facts:
1.Julian Assange founded WikiLeaks in 2006 and has been responsible for leaking classified government documents, communications and videos since then – including emails from Sarah Palin’s Yahoo account and more than 90,000 classified documents related to the war in Afghanistan and Iraq.
2. In 2010, Swedish prosecutors issued an arrest warrant for him accusing him of sexual assault, which Assange vehemently denies. After a long battle with british courts he sought asylum at the Ecuadorian embassy in London in 2012 and has been living there since then.
3. Vivienne Westwood is a fashion legend and an human rights/environmental activist. She launched her label in 1976 and was at the forefront of the Punk revolution (Remember Sex Pistols & God Save the Queen?) Her son Ben is an erotic photographer turned designer.