SAfrica's Mandela Foundation getting into fashion

[March 09, 2011]  JOHANNESBURG (AP) -- The Nelson Mandela Foundation is launching an international fashion clothing line.

Money raised from the project will help sustain the foundation's charitable gifts even as it boosts South Africa's troubled textile and clothing industry.

The line will be called 46664 Apparel -- named after Mandela's Robben Island prison number. The anti-apartheid icon spent 27 years in prisons before becoming South Africa's first black president in 1994.

The preppy-looking men's and classic-style women's range is being designed by Seardel, South Africa's biggest textile and clothing manufacturer.

The foundation said Tuesday it will launch the clothing line in South Africa in August and probably in the United States and Britain next year.

[Associated Press]

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