DESIGNERS AGAINST AIDS 
Non-profit organization ‘Beauty Without Irony’ has launched the international project ‘Designers Against AIDS’ (DAA) in 2004 in order to raise AIDS awareness in the international media and towards the general public, more specifically towards young people in the industrialised countries using elements from pop culture (music, fashion, design, arts, sports, film, celebrities, etc).
HOW DOES DAA WORK?
AIDS awareness project Designers Against AIDS -born in Belgium, but active all over the world- wants to reach young people by using their favorite celebrities from the worlds of music, fashion, sports and art to raise their interest and curiosity, making them visit the website www.designersagainstaids.com, click on the links to local AIDS organisations and learn more about the disease.
The main objective of Designers against AIDS is to raise awareness and to get the subject of HIV/AIDS back into the media all over the world, as lately it has become a forgotten disease, especially in the western world. Our messages are: ‘Prevention is the only cure for HIV/AIDS‘ (protect yourself and your partner) and ‘Know your status’ (get tested). Furthermore we fight for the acceptance of and equal rights for seropositive people.
Media
Continuing with new international collections presented ever since, DAA has reached a vast amount of press in lifestyle TV programs, regular newspapers, glossy magazines and different spaces in media mainly focused to a young audience. Media who have reported about DAA include i-D, Vogue, Interview, Elle, International Herald Tribune, Zoo Magazine, De Morgen, Weekend-Knack, De Tijd, El Pais, El Mundo, Citizen K, Marie-Claire, Vanity Fair, Madame Figaro, Libération, New York Post, Le Monde, Cosmopolitan, MTV, TMF, JIM TV, Studio Brussels, Interview, Canal +, Fashion TV., Vogue TV France...
Website
The most important tool for DAA is the website www.designersagainstaids.com that is shown on every item, in press releases and publications and that constitutes a platform with links to local AIDS organizations. This way visitors can learn how to protect themselves -and how to help others who are less fortunate than they are. And if they look for this info actively on their own computer, maybe they will remember/understand it better. Currently the informative pages are available in English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Dutch, Russian, Chinese, Finnish and Japanese, while an Arabic translation is in the works.
RECENT PROJECTS
Festival
DAA took part in the ‘Internacional Benicàssim Festival’, July 2008 in Spain, with an exhibition of the ‘DAA Remade‘ collection, a selection of DAA T-shirts customized by famous artists, musicians and designers from the Spanish avantgarde. http://daa.fiberfib.com
Perfume
The ‘Six Scents‘ fragrance collection was launched in October 2008 to raise money to International HIV/AIDS Education Center. Six fragrances are made by fragrance company Symrise -in collaboration with creative agency Metaproject and Joseph Quartana of Seven New York. The scents have been designed by Gareth Pugh, Bernhard Willhelm, Preen, Jeremy Scott, Alexandre Herchcovitch and Cosmic Wonder Light Source in close collaboration with Symrise Perfumes. www.six-scents.com
Auction
The Lee Cooper 100 years charity auction was held in Paris in September 2008, at Drouot Montaigne, with all proceeds going to Designers Against AIDS and the Red Cross France. Up for auction were 100 unique denim-themed pieces by artists and designers such as JC deCastelbajac, Playboy, Chicks on Speed, Marc Atlan, Pia Myrvold, Alain Mikli, Jade Jagger and Landrover.
Bedlinen collection
The first DAA bedlinen collection, consisting of duvet covers and matching pillowcases and manufactured by Mistral Home Textiles, will be available in Europe from June 2009, with all net proceeds going to DAA for the Education Center. The prints have been designed by celebrities such as singer Kate Ryan, elektro band Vive la Fête, fashion designers Bas Kosters and the late Percy Irausquin and 8 more creatives. www.mistral.be
The DAA clothing collection 
DAA presents different items every season that are being promoted and sold worldwide. The first DAA collection was shown in June 2005 as a T-shirt/jersey based fashion line and sold in fashion, concept and music shops worldwide. The items are designed by famous and emerging fashion designers, musicians, artists and sports celebrities.
Online store
In May 2009 Designers Against Aids will launch their own online shop in cooperation with Global Detox, offering a range of celeb-designed fair trade organic cotton collections. Here you‘ll find T- shirts, underwear and nightwear for men and women. 25% of the sales price of every item will be donated directly to our education center. www.designersagainstaidsshop.com
Fashion against AIDS - an ongoing collaboration with H&M 
In 2007, DAA approached giant fashion retailer Hennes & Mauritz for a cooperation seeking to mould the opinion of the biggest possible amount of fashion lovers towards AIDS prevention, especially youngsters in the industrialised countries. Taking on their Corporate Social Responsibility, H&M, the international fashion company based in Sweden created a platform for DAA to spread its message through the designs of international artists and musicians.
On January 31st 2008 H&M and Designers Against Aids launched the first ‘FASHION AGAINST AIDS’ collection of T-shirts, tank tops and hooded sweaters for boys and girls designed by world‘s most acclaimed musicians and fashion designers, such as Timbaland, Katharine Hamnett and Rihanna. The collection was sold in H&M Divided departments and promoted in the media and towards the public in 27 countries. A special mention goes to the Video Wall on www.hm.com where young people could upload the statement "Protect yourself and the people you love -use a condom" and say this out loud together with the FAA artists who were also broadcasted during more than 6 months saying this quote. Hundreds of youngsters uploaded their statement -many of whom wear a FAA T-shirt.
The artists participated free of charge and 25 per cent of the proceeds from the collection went to HIV/AIDS prevention projects around the world coordinated by DAA. www.hm.com
We’re very proud to announce our second ‘Fashion against AIDS’ collection together with H&M, that is in almost 1000 stores in 30 countries from May 28, 2009. Artists include Tokio Hotel, Katy Perry, Roisin Murphy, Pharrell Williams/N.E.R.D., Estelle, Yoko Ono, Dita Von Teese, Dangerous Muse, Cyndi Lauper, Yelle, Robyn and Katharine Hamnett. All T-shirts and body’s are again made of organic cotton and 25% of the sales price will be donated to HIV/AIDS prevention projects of Designers against AIDS, UNFPA, MTV’s Staying Alive Foundation and YouthAIDS.
Models against AIDS
In January 2008 DAA established ‘Models Against Aids’ in order to inform girls and boys who dream of becoming a model about HIV/AIDS and safe sex. Models Against AIDS also raises funds for future AIDS awareness programs: for every booking, each model will donate 1% to DAA. Furthermore, models will take part in future campaigns, give lectures at schools, speak out during interviews and at events and motivate their colleagues to also join MAA. Spokesperson for Models Against AIDS is Belgian top model Elise Crombez
International HIV/AIDS Awareness Education Center 
Following the worldwide success in raising AIDS awareness with retail store Hennes & Mauritz (H&M), the next international Designers Against AIDS (DAA) initiative has recently been launched.
The first ‘International HIV/AIDS Awareness Education Center’ (IHAEC) in Antwerp, Belgium is due to be set up in 2009 with the aim to inspire young people to raise awareness among their peers in their own country of origin. This is a significant step in the fight against HIV/AIDS, as the last global AIDS awareness campaigns took place over 20 years ago. Many young people nowadays remain ignorant about HIV and we feel that this is dangerous, irrespon- sible and unneccesary.
At the IHAEC there will be workshops with speakers from Designers Against AIDS, artists and other creatives from the DAA network, UNFPA, UNESCO, Doctors Without Borders, The Institute of Tropical Medicine, a socially aware advertising agency, seropositive youngsters and other people who are involved with raising AIDS awareness. We want to invite motivated young people from Europe, Scandinavia, UK, USA, Canada, Africa, Japan, Eastern Europe, India and China to follow 1 month long workshops and are looking for companies, foundations and organisations who want to support the IHAEC, either financially, by donating goods (for instance computers) or by ‘adopting’ one or more students financially so they can follow workshops with us (transport, food and lodging, lectures, learning materials, etc).
