We have an update on a story we published earlier this week about the confusion arising between South Africa's 466/64 Fashion line, which is launching in the U.S. and plans to stage a show at New York Fashion Week next month, and the Nelson Mandela Foundation.

According to Erin Patton, CEO of Company B — the exclusive license holder for 466/64 Fashion in North America — the company never claimed the direct involvement of Mandela or his foundation in 466/64. As Patton was quoted by WWD on Aug. 2nd, Mandela "is not directly involved. That was never intimated. All the press materials say it was inspired by him." (Italics ours.) As Patton also told the Daily Beast, "We have a guarded approach so that we are not overly commercializing his image."

To counter the claims to the contrary by the North American representatives for the Nelson Mandela Foundation, the Dallas, Texas-based Patton asked us to share a statement by Sello Hatang, a spokesperson for the Mandela Foundation in South Africa, to clarify the backstory to the clothing line.Continue reading...

Update: This story has been updated with statements from the Nelson Mandela Foundation and Company B, which holds the license for 466/64 Fashion in North America — click here for our update.

Nelson Mandela spent 27 years in prison, many of them wearing the ID number 466/64 on Robben Island, which is not far from Cape Town, South Africa. Along the way, he became a symbol for democracy and the anti-apartheid movement, and is now upheld worldwide as an elder statesman.

That prison ID number, though, has ended up sinking Mandela into the world of crass commercialism. 466/64 Fashion is a relatively new fashion line (it just launched in the U.S. on July 18th — Mandela's 94th birthday) that had sold itself as either being overseen by Mandela or at least involving him along with claiming that it would give some of its proceeds to a Mandela charity (see its Facebook banner, above). 

The word from Mandela's reps, however, is that he has nothing to do with any of it — and did not spend 27 years in jail for a fashion label.Continue reading...