AMNISTIA INTERNACIONAL & WOMEN’SECRET JOIN FORCES AGAINST GENDER VIOLENCE

This is one of the boldest campaigns women’secret has embarked on to date. Not just because of the message, but also because of the way we’re getting the message across.

The fight against gender violence continues to cause a major headache for many governments. But little can be achieved if the victims of this kind of violence continue to suffer in silence as if they were ashamed to speak up and tell their story. This unmentionable secret that so many women are unwilling to own up to is the slogan for the campaign launched by women’secret and Amnesty International this spring 2010 in Portugal: “Gender violence shouldn’t be a secret”.

Together with illustrator André Letria, we’ve featured this slogan on a mini collection made up of 3 T-shirts and 2 pairs of shorts with bold messages designed to help us say no to gender violence. w’s has promised to donate €25,000 to this worthy cause.

But apart from making a financial contribution, here at women’secret we liked the idea of using our windows and stores to draw attention to this issue. And as well as giving our mannequins a megaphone and dressing them up in protest slogans, we’ve even dared to cross out part of our slogan in all our stores: we’ve crossed out the word ’secret’ with tape in the Amnesty International corporate colour and featuring their logo to show our commitment to this cause.

In addition, we’ve filled the streets of Lisbon with girls handing out secret notes inviting young women to discover a secret… in our stores! And apart from the window displays, we’ve created a special space in the stores with a book with blank pages where girls can write and read their messages and thoughts.

The garments will be on sale in the Portuguese store from the 25 March, and also at our online store. The campaign has been created for Portugal, but we’d like all of you, women from all over the world, to discover at first hand an initiative that is so important for all of us.

A big thank you to everyone for helping us to set up initiatives like this. If it wasn’t for you, they simply wouldn’t be possible!