Giorgio Armani is bringing the AIDS fight to the high street Thursday night with a new range that funds rock star Bono's African charity RED .
The iconic Italian designer's Emporio Armani-RED collection is expected to be one of the highlights of London Fashion Week .
Armani has been making RED eyewear since April - sported, among others, by the England soccer team - but the new Emporio array will include clothing, accessories and even watches .
In December, Armani was one of five top firms to join Bono's RED project .
Some 40% of the Armani RED profits will go to the AIDS charity set up by Bono and US activist Bobby Shriver, nephew of US President John Fitzgerald Kennedy .
"When Bono and Bobby Shriver told me about their plans for the RED brand, I signed up straight away," the 72-year-old style guru said in London daily The Independent, whose Thursday edition he guest-designed .
"What a brilliant idea - sell people products they want and give a percentage of the revenues to fights AIDS, tuberculisis and malaria." In the editorial, framed in blazing red, Armani recalled his poor childhood in the northern Italian city of Piacenza and revealed he had been burned "from head to toe" by an unexploded WWII bomb he was playing with .
The designer lost a friend in the explosion, which left a scar on his ankle he bears to this day .
"I had my childhood taken from me by the Second World War so I can empathize with the kids I see in the papers or on the television who are also losing that special piece of their lives" .
The Armani edition of the paper, which is giving half its proceeds to RED, featured Kate Moss on the cover, with a free poster of her inside .
It contained articles on Africa's AIDS plague by celebrities including George Clooney, Leonardo Di Caprio, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Andriy Shevchenko, Ashley Judd and Beyoncé Knowles .
Thursday's was The Independent's second RED edition .
In May, when Bono himself edited it, it sold 70,000 more copies than its usual circulation .
For Thursday night's unprecedented multi-collection show, Armani has chosen London for the first time to unveil his spring/summer women's range .
The designer was feted as he toured the British capital to cut the ribbon on his revamped, historic Emporio Armani boutique and open flagship stores for his Armani Collezioni label and his new Armani Casa home furnishings brand .
Asked what he thought about Queen Elizabeth's dress sense, the silver-haired stylist was diplomatic .
"Is the Queen elegant? What a question! The Queen isn't elegant, she's the Queen" .
"I adore the Queen. Her little hats, hairstyles, outfits (and) colours...always express great royal dignity" .
