Gucci donates to UNICEF

Filed in archive Accessories , Bags , News on November 27, 2006

Gucci has followed in the footsteps of so many celebrities and devised a whole Christmas line packed with most luscious products, donating a percentage of the proceeds to UNICEF. Elle.com reports:

"During the period of November 22 through December 31st, 20 percent of sales from Gucci's special Holiday Collection, which ranges from opulent ostrich handbags to unique brass christmas tree ornaments, will go directly to those UNICEF programs helping the over 1.5 million children who have been impacted, and in many cases orphaned, by the worldwide HIV/AIDS epidemic."

I would most definitely love getting the positano medium tote for Christmas!

But, there is also a second side to this charity urge many companies and celebrities are feeling - good, quick and easy PR. As Guardian wrote, Gucci is among the companies that in fact keep outsourcing to India and Pakistan, where people and even children work in inhumane conditions:

"Unicef staff in Pakistan and India have focused their fury on the alleged working practices of the French conglomerate PPR (formerly Pinault-Printemps-Redoute), which owns Gucci and whose Asian suppliers have, over the past decade, been embroiled in damning links to sweatshops in Mumbai and Karachi.
Three years ago Unicef was given an international report into the working practices of PPR, published by the French Centre for Business Information, which spent six months investigating the firm, concluding that Indian suppliers to their international catalogues kept workers in poor conditions, paying as little as 44p a day."

I am rethinking my Christmas wish.