Benetton: colour me bad

The Italian fashion firm Benetton has shocked the public with advertisements featuring a man dying of AIDS and a priest kissing a nun. But with the blood-soaked clothes of a dead Bosnian soldier, it may now have gone too far.

ASTORM of protest has greeted the latest promotional campaign by Italian fashion firm Benetton. Since advertisements featuring the blood-soaked uniform of a dead Bosnian soldier first appeared, questions have been raised about the morality of linking death with fashion.

According to the controversial fashion house, the advertisement is designed to promote peace, not sweaters. In Hong Kong, radio phone-in programmes have attracted callers denouncing Benetton, and a local psychiatrist described the campaign as profit-motivated cynicism which trivialises the horrors of war.

The Vatican has joined in the protest and some publishers have refused to carry the US$15 million (HK$116.19 million) campaign, calling it ''tasteless''. A French Government minister has branded the advertisement a ''scandal'' and called for a boycott of the company's products - she even vowed to tear Benetton clothes off people's backs if she sees anyone wearing them.

But the firm has played down the criticism, saying the aim of the eye-catching image is to provoke public discussion of world problems - not to sell sweaters. The advertisement, showing a bullet-holed T-shirt drenched in blood and a pair of camouflage trousers belonging to soldier Marinko Gagro, was made with the permission of the dead man's family. The 30-year-old Croat soldier, who was an agriculture student before the war, was killed in action near Mostar last July.

Above the photograph is a message from Marinko's father, Gojko. It reads: ''I would like my son's name and all that remains of him to be used in the name of peace against war.'' And that is what Benetton's marketing bosses say they are doing.