I'm not about to get all sanctimonious to get brownie points for featuring charitable fashion-related news.  However, Marni's charitable idea is an endearingly cute one that simultaneously solves the problem of what to wear with my stash of Muji/Uniqlo drab office skirts that I accumulated during my uni temping days and also what to buy as last minute X'mas gifts for a few people.

Marni's association with printed art on clothes is taken down to basics by presenting childrens' self-portraits from all around the world.  Children from Colombia, Tibet, India, Guatamala and Brazil were asked to doodle their self-portraits and six of the drawings have been selected to be printed on men's and women's t-shirts available on the Marni Virtual Store. 

I remember doing this self-portrait excercise, first starting off with the classic childish errors of 'all heads are shaped like eggs', teensy tiny eyes, HUGE lips and other sorts of disproportions.  Marni apparently received 7,000 of these self-portraits and though the children were asked to draw what they see in a mirror, some had the imagination to depict themselves as what they wanted to be (firefighters, astronauts etc).  To be ickle again and go mad with crayolas and felt tips....

The main thing is though (and this is where I go slightly preachy!), the proceeds of the T-shirt sales will be distributed between the schools who participated in the initiative.  Actually, the other 'main' thing is that the t-shirts are not going to break the bank at £60 a pop and like I said, solves my very two very selfish/uncharitable problems.  If you are lucky enough to shop at Marni regularly then you'll also see an ickle face peering up at you as the remaining drawings have been reproduced on the stores' carrier bags.

P.S. I'm not actually a 'Bah humbug' sort of person.  I'm just wary of various ways of cashing in hidden under the guise of charity.  This thankfully isn't one of them.