Foreign ministers at the G8 meeting in London have resolved to work together to end sexual violence in combat zones. The declaration calls for urgent action to combat what it describes as a “culture of impunity”.

The UN High Commission for Refugees Special Envoy, Angelina Jolie, was met by the British Foreign Secretary William Hague.

He described as “horrific” the use of rape and sex attacks as weapons of war, while the actress said the problem could be prevented and had to be confronted.

“I have heard survivors of rape, from Bosnia to the DRC say that they feel that world simply does not care about them. And who could blame them? For too long they have been the forgotten victims of war, responsible for none of the harm but baring the worst of the pain. But today, I believe their voices have been heard,” Angelina Jolie said.

After launching an awareness campaign last year, Hague and Jolie visited the Nzulo refugee camp near Goma in the Democratic Republic of Congo in March. Britain has pledged 10 million pounds (11.75 million euros) in new funding to tackle sexual violence in war zones.

Source: The Guardian 11 April 2013

The wars in Bosnia–Herzegovina and Rwanda in the 1990s were a turning point. These conflicts brought about the term “rape as a weapon of war” as rape was carried out systematically, and was strategically used as a war tactic. Horrendous accounts of atrocities were documented and reported, and survivors spoke out about their experiences of gang rape, rape camps, rape slavery and forced pregnancy.The accounts not only fuelled global outrage and condemnation, but also spurred the international community to define the issue of sexual violence in conflict as a serious threat to peace and security

Visit www.stoprapenow.org to support this vital campaign. Together, we can end the brutal suffering of women.

Join the UN Secretary General in showing your support and raising awareness.

Eden Diodati is a newly-launched, luxury fashion label spear-headed by Nigerian designer Jennifer Ewah, who moved to London as a young girl. Vivid patterns and startling colours invoke the dramatic landscape of equatorial Africa in this unique collection of clothing.

Environmentally-conscious shoppers can rest assured they are having a positive influence on the world through their style-fixes, as 10% of Diodati’s profits are donated to human welfare charityMédecin sans Frontiéres. This not-for-profit organisation supports artisans and garment workers across the globe, helping them to build sustainable futures while providing an antidote to mass-market culture and exploitation.

In Jennifer’s own words, the brand has been formed around four key values that ‘reflect the optimism of the human spirit,’ known as Diodati’s Talisman:

- Art and Collaboration

- Manufactured ethically

- Beauty through compassion

- Wearable philanthropy

Defining itself as a ‘label of love,’ Diodati offers clothes reflecting the beauty that exists both inside and out. The artistic heritage of nature, planetary systems and botany uniquely inspire this ‘eclectic’ selection of garments, which are suitable for both day and night wear.

Binary opposites structure the brand’s ethos, which boldly attempts to combine the ‘psyche and the senses’ into one luxury women’s fashion collection. Futuristic but primal, extravagant but ethical, Eden Diodati is the perfect fit for today’s contradictory modern world.

Eden Diodati for 2012 was highly commended in the Global Awards for sustainable fashion!

See photos of who attended at:

http://www.bafta.org/losangeles/news/awards-season-tea-party,3580,BA.html

Eden Diodati: the Solaris Belt in emboseed shagreen covered in 22.5 karat gold leaf.

Strong. Feminine. Unique.

1st December 2012 was World Aids Day.

On 1st December, Eden Diodati was privileged to be a delegate at a Christian conference for businesses seeking to alleviate poverty in this World.

We believe that a disease like HIV can be stopped if we all unite and support organisations tackling the gross waste of lives, both young and old. Health is the universal equaliser, the thing that stops us in our tracks when it fails, potentially ruining our human potential. For many in the developing world it is so needlessly so...

The transmission of HIV from an HIV-positive mother to her child during pregnancy, labour, delivery or breastfeeding is called mother-to-child transmission. In the absence of any interventions transmission rates range from 15-45%. This rate can be reduced to levels below 5% with effective interventions.

Source: World Health Organization

We can stop it.

Together.

Donate to MSF

www.msf.org.uk/Donate

Image Copyright: Barron Claiborne

You would be forgiven for thinking that this beautiful young woman is a fashion model. 

Yet out of monumental pain and darkness can emerge exquisite beauty and light. A survivor of Rwanda's 1994 Genocide, Sabrina Iyadede has overcome pain, trauma and incredible loss and emerged with an inspirational strength and spirit. She has recorded and performed with musicians in Belgium, and currently resides in Brooklyn, New York. Her passion and love for her home country and continent is evident in her words and she represents her home with soul, beauty, grace, and fire.

Iyadede’s voice is at once delicate and powerful, but her style defies easy categorisation. Her free spirit and originality offer an alternative sound to that usually expected of pop music. Her first studio album, ‘Talking to God’ is an eclectic mix.

She is the very picture of resilience and hope. 

The grace and courage of the women of Rwanda is testimony to what lies behind the surface of gender based violence in conflicts the world over.

A desire to destroy and claim back from God what is His and what He cares for....the essence of beauty in a person's humanity. That special light in the eyes and fire in the heart.

To women throughout the world that have survived conflict and war....

Eden Diodati pays tribute to your strength.

Your forgiveness. Your faith.

Your hope, and your courage.

See Eden Diodati in the December issue of Vanity Fair. Global couture. Manufactured ethically and with love.....

Oh so lovely....

Genesis 1

Images Copyright: Murray Mitchell

On Fashion & Art.

Floods

As the exceptional monsoon rains fell, rivers broke their banks, washing away bridges, roads, villages and livelihoods. Food and safe water were in short supply.

The risks of illness and contagion, and the sheer number of vulnerable people completely exposed to the elements were major challenges for the relief effort.

MSF staff fanned out to identify the areas and communities most in need. At the height of the flood response, more than 1,600 staff were supporting hospitals, treating injuries and illnesses, running mobile clinics and distributing tents, shelter materials, and washing and cooking kits.

Drinking water

One of the most urgent needs was for safe drinking water and MSF quickly engaged in trucking water, distributing up to 2.1 million litres a day. 

Poetry in breathtaking, burgeoning motion....

The pure goodness of the Earth.

Images Copyright: Nobuyoshi Araki

Article courtesy of Vogue.com

Janelle Monae BaBopByeYa from Eden Diodati on Vimeo.

Eden Diodati is inspired by inter-galactic imagery and gorgeous melodies 
that could bring the sky to the ground and melt land into the Seas.

Listen and enjoy.

The painting "Circe Offering the Cup to Ulysses" echoes the unmitigated tension of this poem:

Pursuit

Dans le fond des forêts votre image me suit. RACINE 

"There is a panther stalks me down:
One day I'll have my death of him; 
His greed has set the woods aflame, 
He prowls more lordly than the sun. 
Most soft, most suavely glides that step, 
Advancing always at my back; 
From gaunt hemlock, rooks croak havoc: 
The hunt is on, and sprung the trap. 
Flayed by thorns I trek the rocks, 
Haggard through the hot white noon. 
Along red network of his veins 
What fires run, what craving wakes?

Insatiate, he ransacks the land 
Condemned by our ancestral fault, 
Crying: blood, let blood be spilt; 
Meat must glut his mouth's raw wound. 
Keen the rending teeth and sweet 
The singeing fury of his fur; 
His kisses parch, each paw's a briar, 
Doom consummates that appetite. 
In the wake of this fierce cat, 
Kindled like torches for his joy, 
Charred and ravened women lie, 
Become his starving body's bait. 

Now hills hatch menace, spawning shade; 
Midnight cloaks the sultry grove; 
The black marauder, hauled by love 
On fluent haunches, keeps my speed. 
Behind snarled thickets of my eyes 
Lurks the lithe one; in dreams' ambush 
Bright those claws that mar the flesh 
And hungry, hungry, those taut thighs. 
His ardor snares me, lights the trees, 
And I run flaring in my skin; 
What lull, what cool can lap me in 
When burns and brands that yellow gaze? 

I hurl my heart to halt his pace, 
To quench his thirst I squander blood; 
He eats, and still his need seeks food, 
Compels a total sacrifice. 
His voice waylays me, spells a trance, 
The gutted forest falls to ash; 
Appalled by secret want,
I rush From such assault of radiance. 
Entering the tower of my fears, 
I shut my doors on that dark guilt, 
I bolt the door, each door I bolt. 
Blood quickens, gonging in my ears:

The panther's tread is on the stairs, 
Coming up and up the stairs."


Poem: Sylvia Plath - Pursuit

We all need respite from "the Pursuit". Lions playing with lambs.

Idyllic.

Peace.

Image: J W Waterhouse - Una and the Lion

Founded by doctors and journalists in 1971, MSF is now a worldwide movement with offices in 19 countries and an international coordination office in Geneva, Switzerland.

As an independent and self-directed organisation, MSF’s actions are guided by medical ethics and the principles of neutrality and impartiality. This means that MSF offers assistance to people based only on need and irrespective of race, religion, gender or political affiliation.

MSF strives to ensure that it has the power to freely evaluate medical needs, to access populations without restriction and to directly control the aid it provides giving priority to those in most grave danger. MSF does not take sides in armed conflict and insists on unhindered access to patients.

When MSF is witness to massive and neglected acts of violence against individuals and groups, it may speak out publicly based on eyewitness accounts, medical data and experience.

The work of MSF is carried out by over 25,000 health professionals, logistics experts and administrative staff who run projects in approximately 65 countries around the world. 

The MSF movement was awarded the 1999 Nobel Peace Prize.
 

....and in any language from Mandarin to English, words were never so lovely as these:

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails."1 Corinthians 13:4-8

Etched on my heart.

Proverbs 31:8 “Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute.”

Images: Henri Cartier Bresson

See Eden Diodati profiled in the Financial Times How to Spend It online luxury magazine 

http://www.howtospendit.com/#!/articles/6884-for-goodness-sake-eden-diodati

"From Eden Diodati to Stella McCartney all the things we’re lusting after this week are from brands with the People Planet Trust Mark. Positive Luxury’s People Planet Trust Mark is the Blue Butterfly symbol given to brands that care about sustainability, and clicking on the butterfly will explain what positive steps the brand is taking to make its business more socially and environmentally responsible."

A Label of love

The collection draws inspiration from an artistic heritage that has bound global cultures together for centuries – as well as from the eclectic beauty that surrounds us in nature itself. These are pieces for the modern woman whose grace, individuality and empathy emit from within. Her discernment and flair is reflected in innovative combinations of natural materials never seen before. The collection fuses timeless artistry with modern innovation in evening and cocktail wear that captures the essence of 21st century femininity.

The pieces: Omega suggests purity and peace through graceful lines created in silk, reminiscent of neo-classical sculpture. Modernity meeting elegance. Luxurious prints in the Ara, Aurora and Equinox embrace the vibrancy of nature. Sculptural jewellery and statement belts in gold and mother of pearl add defining accents. Unique, precious and modern.

Yet the opportunity to wear a piece by Eden Diodati is more than an aesthetic statement. It is a commitment to a fashion ethos embedded in a four-tiered ethic we call the Talisman. 

The Talisman draws together four key philosophies that together reflect the positivity and passion of the human condition.

A global collaboration of cultural influences achieves designs with a breathtakingly creative edge.

An ethical approach to manufacturing delivers opportunities for marginalised people to re-create their own futures.

Our commitment to donate 10% of dividends to Médecins sans Frontières recognises the need to address human fragility on a global scale.

These three core principles combine to produce the fourth – our vision to create a brand that offers women the opportunity to experience true beauty through compassion.

Our garments are crafted through a not for profit cooperative in Italy, run entirely by volunteers. People at the fringes of society – those touched by physical and mental abuse, trauma and disability – are given the chance to rebuild their skills and lives through their journey with Eden Diodati.

Plans are underway to grow, develop and to help more non-profits and NGOs globally making their story, their journey, part of ours.

In a world jaded by mass marketing and cynical exploitation, women seek the opportunity to experience luxury fashion that stirs the soul as well as the senses. Now, finally, it is here.

"Best dressed

Eden Diodati, a label being launched this month by former lawyer Jennifer Ewah, has more to offer than just beautiful clothes. Its range of silk dresses (which start from £1,660 for the draped, digitally printed Andromeda cocktail dress) will include several designs produced by artisans working at the Cooperativa Rinascere, an Italian non-profit co-operative near Vicenza that provides employment, training and support to disabled and disadvantaged local women. Eden Diodati has been set up as a social enterprise: most of its profits will go back into the co-operative, but there are also plans to donate 10 per cent of shareholder dividends - predicted to be in the region of £8,000 in the first year - to Medecins Sans Frontieres, which provides free medical assistance in over 65 countries."

See Eden Diodati in the Spring 2012 issue of Chari-t Magazine a french luxury magazine focusing on high fashion brands and the charity sector.

"More than a committed brand, Eden Diodati is a concept based on generosity. Jennifer Ewah, very close to her mother--a doctor-- wanted to capture and recreate the beauty but also the sensitivity and compassion of women. Therefore, empathy and cooperation are at the heart of artistic creation. Much of her collection is performed by an Italian cooperative of Vicenza, whose mission is the rehabilitation of the weakest people. A group of volunteers is responsible for the supervision of workers who are somewhat different from the average worker. Addicts of convalescent patients from psychiatric hospitals, patients suffering from various ailments or are victims of abuse have the opportunity to participate in a strong and rewarding project. It builds their self confidence and allows them to gain experience, this opportunity is proven to help them bounce back in to society.

On the wardrobe side, Eden Diodati works a vestal look for this first season with pieces such as these luxurious belted dresses."



These amazing images of quartz and agate were shot by renowned Architect Richard Weston.

A marvel of nature and inspiration of Eden Diodati's prints this Season.
Envelop yourself in the glory of nature.

We were truly inspired by Richard Weston’s images, and delighted that Weston should agree to exclusively supply Eden Diodati with evening and cocktail dress fabrics.

“Jennifer is a talented designer, and her vision for Eden Diodati is one we support wholeheartedly” says Weston Earth Images Creative Founder, Professor Richard Weston.

This Season Eden Diodati was inspired by the beauty of Africa. Expansive, vast. One continent, a multiplicity of cultures and colours. Just like the artists of the futurist movement were inspired by Africa, so too are we. Look to the Cassiopeia collection for what we describe as "ethno-minimalism."

Adorn yourself.

Images: Peter Beard, Herb Ritts and George Rodger

The endless inspiration.

The Botanical Series: Part 1. Flowers can have a decadence in their elaborate beauty as well as purity. The flower of the Emperor. The loveliest of all in the Garden. The Tree Peony.

Light and the lily.

“In Eden on the humid flowers, that breathed

Their morning incense, when all things, that breathe,

From the Earth's great altar send up silent praise

To the Creator, and his nostrils fill

With grateful smell, forth came the human pair,

And joined their vocal worship to the quire

Of creatures wanting voice; that done, partake

The season prime for sweetest scents and airs:

Then commune, how that day they best may ply

Their growing work: for much their work out-grew

The hands' dispatch of two gardening so wide,

And Eve first to her husband thus began.”

                                  Paradise Lost

                                  John Milton

Images shot by Eden Diodati's Creative Director.

This Season Eden Diodati saught to capture the essence of beauty in the form of sculptural jewellery accessories borne from the light of simplicity in form and function. A great inspiration is Brancusi. A Romanian born sculptor who lived in Paris and worked under Rodin. Brancusi is famous for his simplification of forms to geometrical and sparse objects to which he proclaimed to be getting to the essence. Timelessness in shape and form.

Eden Diodati

"Jennifer Ewah is the woman behind this range of exquisite hand-printed silk dresses. Working with an Italian co-operative, Eden Diodati helps recovering addicts and abused women get back into work by teaching them new skills and building their self-esteem. Ten per cent of the label's profit goes to humanitarian organisations."