Dressing for democracy

All right-thinking people will have been heartened this week by the news that the international fashion industry has joined the protests against Austria's extremist Freedom Party leader, Jorg Haider.

In case you missed the pictures from the Milan show, the collection by Rome-based designers Gattinoni included a daring anti-Haider "protest dress". A full-length ballgown featuring a picture of Haider and a swastika, it was satirical yet seductive, full of attitude yet flattering to the female form. The audience loved it.

The Austrian opposition groups who took out full-page newspaper ads last weekend appealing for support from abroad can hardly have expected such dramatic success so soon. And coming from the fashion industry - which most reasonable people would agree is a beacon of democracy, tolerance and respect for difference - the Milan statement must be particularly welcome.

Personally, I can never watch those fashion shows on television without being moved by the sheer range of humanity on display.

From the almost ludicrously tall and thin, to the quite seriously tall and thin, with the odd Spice Girl in between; all human life is there, almost.

I know some critics might argue that, apart from Naomi Campbell and the model who wore the dress in Milan, the international fashion industry is about as multiracial as the Vienna Boys Choir. Indeed, the same cynics would probably say that, given the industry's record on fur, for example, proHaider dresses could be the big thing in the autumn collections.

But enough of the begrudgery. The designer who created the dress, Guillermo Mariotti, explained: "I am against any situation, in Austria or anywhere, that reminds me of the scariness of the Nazi regime". A little vague, maybe, since a screening of Schindler's List could be such an occasion. But I think we know what he meant.

The point is, the Milan protest won't have been lost on Haider, a fashion-conscious populist who apparently wears designer gear even when out jogging. Indeed, there's a long-established connection between fashion and the far-right, the rise of which is always associated with an upturn in coloured shirt sales; so I say, well done Milan.

AS regular readers may be aware, I spent a few days in Vienna during the election campaign last year, along with my wife and daughter. Our visit may well have added to the rise in anti-foreigner sentiment, but we didn't notice anything (indeed, we didn't notice there was an election happening) and people couldn't have been nicer.

One of the things we did notice, I'm glad to say, was the city's famous Hundertwasserhaus; a block of municipal flats which was the masterpiece of eccentric architect Friedensreich Hundertwasser, who died last weekend. Hundertwasser famously hated geometry, believing that the straight line was "the tool of the devil"; and that uneven floors, for example, were "a symphony, a melody for the feet, bringing back natural vibrations to man". A member of the architect grouping sometimes known as the "shameless self-publicist" school, he insisted that only in nature could you find models sympathetic to human habitation. And the Hundertwasserhaus has been such a success in this regard that, whenever its residents look out their windows now, they get photographed by busloads of Japanese tourists.

The human residents, that is. The architect was also a strong believer in buildings having "tree tenants," which would pay rent in oxygen and other environmental hard currencies. Indeed, the Hundertwasserhaus is so overcrowded with tree-tenants - three or four to a balcony, in some cases - you could choke on the fresh air, if it weren't for the tour buses.

Many experts consider Hundertwasser to have been, in design terms, a bit of a header. But his use of spirals and crooked lines, of mosaics made from broken glass and crockery, and above all his love of incorporating organic materials throughout a living space has been an undeniably major influence on such people as my 19-month-old daughter. (Not much influence on architects, though.)

Hundertwasser didn't live long enough to see the Milan fashion show, and it's hard to know what he'd have made of the protest. Unfortunately, he also hated clothes; and he went naked whenever both the weather and the decency laws allowed, which in Austria was not that often. At other times, he wore odd socks and unco-ordinated clothes to make his point - he and Mariotti had something in common - and the architect also carried some of the baggage that has contributed to Austria's current difficulty.

His mother, many of whose relatives died at the hands of the Nazis, was a Jew who survived by managing to pass herself off as an Aryan, even to the extent of encouraging her son to join the Hitler Youth. But Hundertwasser was hardly cut out for Nazism (which insisted on straight lines); and his life's work will have contributed greatly to Hitler's suffering, wherever he is.

Haider is no Nazi either, only "a rightwing populist," according to Simon Wiesenthal of the Vienna-based Jewish Archive Centre. No threat to democracy either, Wiesenthal says, and he ought to know. But just in case, I think I speak for the free world in general when I say that we'll all sleep easier tonight, knowing that the fashion industry is on the case.

Frank McNally can be contacted at: fmcnally@irish-times.ie