British designer Katharine Hamnett enjoys fashionable return

ROME (Reuters Life!) - British designer Katharine Hamnett is relishing a comeback now that the fashion world has finally caught up with her campaigning notions about clothes.

Hamnett stormed off the fashion stage four years ago after her pleas to use organic cotton fell on deaf ears.

But the designer whose oversized T-shirts with slogans like "Choose Life" and "Use a Condom" were all the rage in the 1980s is enjoying a return now that "ethical fashion" is in vogue.

"Years ago when I was talking about this I was a voice in the wilderness and now I have people come up to me and say 'Oh, you were right all along,"' Hamnett said in an interview at Rome fashion week, where she was promoting ethical fashion.

Once a fixture on the London catwalk scene, Hamnett severed her contracts with licensees in 2004 to commit what she calls "commercial suicide" and went back to selling T-shirts when her social and environmental initiatives drew little support. [ read more ]