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"Ah, Paris Fashion Week&amp;amp;#8212;full of dramatic accessories, exquisite settings, and always, always a little drama. This time round, some of the early excitement came at Nina Ricci&amp;#x27;s beautiful runway show last Thursday. As you may have heard, two shirtless female protestors with the words &amp;quot;Model Don&amp;#x27;t Go to Brothel&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;Fashion Dictaterror&amp;quot; (sic) painted in black on their naked torsos bolted onto the catwalk as model Hollie-May Saker, 18, made her way down the runway in a white top and filmy skirt, briefly knocking into one of the women (accidentally, it appeared). The protestors, it was later reported, were part of the Ukrainian organization FEMEN, which, according to its website, is an &amp;quot;organization of topless women activists, who defend with their breast (sic) sexual and social equality in the world.&amp;quot; (&amp;quot;We rebel against the exploitation of women in the fashion industry!&amp;quot; the site says.) You&amp;#x27;d think the designer in question would be unhappy with the protestors. (Model Saker, for her part, was visibly upset and was later reported by the New York Post as tweeting: &amp;amp;#8220;That b*tch ruined my walk and had her saggy t-ts in my face&amp;quot;&amp;amp;#133;although that tweet has since been deleted.) But when Glamour had coffee with Nina Ricci creative director Peter Copping four days after the whole kerfuffle, he was sympathetic to the shaken model, but surprisingly, well, understanding about the protestors. And we kind of love that! Hear it from him: Photo Getty CINDI LEIVE: Tell me in general, what was your reaction to what happened at your show? PETER COPPING: It&amp;amp;#8217;s quite funny, because I was backstage and I was watching the show as it unfolded on the monitor screen. And then all of a sudden, these two women, topless, with writing all over their bodies stormed the stage quite close to the beginning of the show. So my initial reaction was shock. But then I looked at it and I have to say I really love the aesthetic of it because the show space was, the floor was pale white, we had like an almost chiffon curtain that was suspended in the center of the room. So the image of the models passing with these women with slogans emblazoned over their bodies was, for me, a very powerful image, which I thought kind of appealed to me. CL: I think it&amp;amp;#8217;s fascinating that you&amp;amp;#8217;re kind of praising their aesthetics instead of being really pissed off about what happened. PC: No, I know. And I know, I mean like I said earlier, I think that&amp;amp;#8217;s why it&amp;amp;#8217;s good that we live in a democracy and that&amp;amp;#8217;s the great thing about the West that people can make that point in whatever way. Sometimes it&amp;amp;#8217;s very aggressive and quite full-on, in some extent. Other people would be a lot softer in their approach. But, you know, I think that it definitely got attention in the news, every sort of news, and I liked the contrast of them alongside the Nina Ricci [runway].&amp;quot; CL: What about their actual argument, the feminist idea that what you do is somehow anti-women? PC: Well, you know, I&amp;amp;#8217;m not completely with them on that because something I&amp;amp;#8217;ve always said about the clothes I design is I think you can be feminine and strong. I think that really is the case. You know, femininity for me doesn&amp;amp;#8217;t show a weakness in a woman&amp;amp;#8217;s character. I think it&amp;amp;#8217;s about women who kind of know who they are and are comfortable with their personality some of the time. So with the message, yes it was a strong message that they&amp;amp;#8217;re giving. I&amp;amp;#8217;m not completely on the same page with them on that. CL: You&amp;amp;#8217;ve mentioned that they&amp;amp;#8217;ve also targeted some pretty significant political figures? PC: Yeah, I know they&amp;amp;#8217;d attacked Fran&amp;amp;ccedil;ois Hollande at an event, and Angela Merkel...so, you know, I&amp;amp;#8217;m kind of up there with the best of them. CL: Would you like to dress them if they were up for it? PC: You know, they were good-looking women, and I wouldn&amp;amp;#8217;t be against that. I wouldn&amp;amp;#8217;t be against sitting down and listening to what they have to say and giving my point as well. But, one thing, I don&amp;amp;#8217;t like violence. I don&amp;amp;#8217;t think this crossed that boundary, but if they wouldn&amp;amp;#8217;t hit me I&amp;amp;#8217;d be willing to talk with them. Do you think it was appropriate for the FEMEN to protest on the runway? What do you think of the model&amp;#x27;s reaction? Not to mention Peter&amp;#x27;s take? Let&amp;#x27;s discuss!"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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