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TEXTILE SUPPLIER INSPIRES WITH THE CREATION OF EVENING GOWNS FROM TOWELLING AND
COMMERCIAL LINENS

Hot on the heels of Milan Fashion Week, commercial linen supplier Linen Connect might just have the answer to combating the credit crunch in style - how about going out in a cocktail dress made out of towels or a ball gown created from hospital bed linen?

When you take a look at the show stopping dresses created by Domestic Couture – the Milan-based design team who were commissioned to produce the dresses you may change your mind about this proposition.

Linen Connect are more at home supplying linen and towelling for end users such as hotels, restaurants and gyms, where their fabrics understandably don’t always get a lot of attention. But through their ‘Love from Linen Connect’ project, they hope to show the world how much they like their products and also to show how beautiful they can be in the right context.

Director of Corporate Strategy, Vikas Shah says, “We are really excited to present Love from Linen Connect to show how much we care about the quality of our products and how remarkably versatile they can be. Domestic Couture’s spectacular designs are a fitting tribute to our long standing tradition of working in the textile business.”

Head designer Paola Monti, based in Milan, said, “This was certainly one of the most unusual commissions we have ever had at Domestic Couture but we really enjoyed the challenge of creating beautiful designs using alternative fabrics that may not always be considered fashionable – we were honoured to be asked.”

The company will be taking the project to the next level by launching an entire website dedicated to the dresses in the coming weeks. Lovefromlinenconnect.com will proudly showcase dazzling photos of the models wearing the couture designs in online galleries, as well as giving a real insight into the design process through photo diaries which the designers kept throughout.

You can see the website at: http://www.lovefromlinenconnect.com

A selection of the images (below) full gallery available on the lovefromlinenconnect.com site

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Linen Connect is a brand of Swiscot

Conservation Couture is the fashion element to The Survival Tour. Each of the life-sized elephants in the herd wears a completely unique and stunning blanket, designed and produced by world class fashion houses that support The Survival Tour campaign. Our Conservation Couture 2008 designers are: Alberta Ferretti, Diane Von Fustenberg, Carolina Herrera, Tommy Hilfiger, Calvin Klein, Donna Karan’s Urban Zen, Ralph Lauren, Julien MacDonald, Isaac Mizrahi, Alice Temperley and Twenty8Twelve.

Swiscot are active supporters of elephant family.

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Photos below:

An Elephant Family spokeswoman said the tour was a fun way to raise awareness about endangered Asian elephants. “The Asian elephant is dying out as we speak with only about 35,000 left across 13 countries,” she said.

“This campaign is our charity’s way of showing that it is in a serious situation and needs our help, hopefully in a fun, creative way,” she added. According to the World Wildlife Federation (WWF), there are between 25,600 and 32,750 Asian elephants in the world, and the animal is at risk of extinction.

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Some media coverage of the tour can be found at:

“Topiary Tour aids Asian Elephants” - September 2008, BBC

Coverage in “Metro”, July 2008

Photo Gallery in “The Guardian” as the elephant herd arrives at Hyde Park