Sicilian authorities are responding to a fashion for Cosa Nosta T-shirts with a new clothing brand which insists "The Mafia is Disgusting". A number of shops have recently started selling tops that play on the island's notorious links with the Mob, rather than playing them down.
Retailers say they are particularly popular with foreign tourists.
One of the best sellers boldly states 'Mafia - Made in Italy'.
Local politicians are dismayed at the trend and the Sicilian Regional Government is hitting back via T-shirts with "La mafia fa Schifo" (The Mafia is Disgusting) emblazoned on the front. The tops will be produced by an Italian firm called Ardita.
At the launch of the initiative, Sicily's Governor Salvatore Cuffaro said he hopes to involve other firms in the production of the anti-Mob items.
He explained that the "La mafia fa Schifo" logo will be granted free to any firm that wants to use it, as long as a slice of the sales revenues goes to charity. As well as the Mafia T-shirts sold in shops, an internet retailer specializing in Cosa Nosta-wear recently started doing business too.
They come in a wide variety of colours and designs with different cuts for men and women. The 2006 spring-summer collection features a top that
reads "Cosa Nostra Boss - Since 1919". Another, which features a man kneeling with gun in hand, reads "Just for Lucre".
The site argues that the goods do not glorify the organized-crime world, but take an "ironic look at the stereotypes that form the tissue of the Italian way of life." Centre-left MP Franco Piro and Senator Giuseppe Di Lello are not convinced and say they are going to make a formal request to the authorities to stop the T-shirts being sold.
Italians have become accustomed to the rest of the world's fascination with the traditional Sicilian Mob, but they usually avoid buying into it.
The release of a videogame called Mafia, in which players can kill rival bosses and set up protection rackets, caused outrage in 2004 and the Sicilian government entered the fray that time too.
Maria Falcone, sister of a Mafia investigator killed by the Mob a decade ago, described the idea of a game glorifying the violence of Cosa Nostra as "abhorrent". Similar protests were heard in November 2005 when a German-based company released a third CD of so-called 'Mafia music'.
The company's CDs are basically collections of southern Italian folk songs performed by various little known local artists and loosely inspired by the 'ndrangheta, the Calabrian mafia. The new album - entitled Le Canzoni dell'Onorata Societa (Songs of the Honoured Society) - has on its cover a picture of a male figure playing a guitar while a revolver sits on a sideboard.
