Design for a Good Cause at Berlin Fashion Week

Designer eyewear, cool black jeans and a range of T-shirts specially designed for a charity auction adorned models at the Berlin fashion week Saturday.

Ralph Anderl, a designer for ic! Berlin, got 35 artists to create t-shirts that will be auctioned via a company Web site to provide glasses to poor people in Brazil who, he said, "have nothing."

Anderl and Maira Becke, a Brazilian model who lives in Germany, came up with the idea for the project together.

"It's my consience about the difference (between) both continents and how big is the need there," Becke said. They are hoping to deliver the glasses in August, she said. The firm is donating 2,000 frames and will use the money raised - it hasn't set a specific target - to provide the lenses.

Anderl's show came on the final day of Berlin's Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week, an event that underlines the German capital's hopes of establishing itself as a fashion power.

It had an eye-catching opening. The designer stumbled out clad in nothing but sunglasses - followed by a woman who wrapped black tape around his waist and face.

That was "an ice breaker," said Liz Vegas, a Berlin-based tattoo artist who designed a t-shirt for the show - black with the words "Tattoo for a better life" in silver.

"Everybody was like, do I have to clap? Or do I have to keep my mouth shut? Or can I laugh? It was like, what does it mean?"

Every model wore black jeans and eyewear, as well as one of the T-shirts.

Becke said the show's concept was uniquely Berlin.

She defined that as being "extremely spontaneous, to do what you feel you need to do, and not what the people are expecting."

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Project Web site: http://wehavenothing.com