The 43 years old Wikileaks founder is going to lauch his range of apareal and accessories in India. If his new plan become successful then Julian Assange branded T-sirt, jeans could be coming to an Indian shopping malls very soon. Assange is also hoping that he would be able to strike a similar chord in the heart of the world’s youngest democracy.
The secret-sharing organization is partnering with a local company,Franchisee India, to get WikiLeaks-branded goods to Indian consumers, the Times of India reports.”India is one of the countries where awareness about WikiLeaks is the highest and Julian is excited about the proposition,” Olafur Vignir Sigurvinsson, an Iceland-based WikiLeaks representative told TOI.
The hope is for a number of physical stores as well as an online e-commerce set up, which Sigurvinsson told The Washington Post said would sell “high-end fashion apparel, accessories, household goods, paper goods, that kind of stuff.” WikiLeaks had “fashion designers in France and in other places who wanted to co-brand their products,” Sigurvinsson added.
The merchandise industry in India alone is reported to be worth $819 million, WikiLeaksis aiming for a truly global Operation.Sigurvinsson says that the group has spoken to agents in every country in the European Union, as well as others in Asia and North Africa.
While some Wikileaks merchandise is already available online, there appears to have been a wider push to expand the merchandise’s reach over the past year. In February,Sigurvinsson and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange released a news release announcing the creation ofWikiLicense, a group designed to help license both the WikiLeaks brand and Assange’s own personal brand. We have created new ways for our supporters to fund our work and WikiLicensing is an important part of that, Assangesaid in a statement.This is also a positive way of both spreading the awareness of our work and protecting the integrity of the brand.
See full story on washingtonpost.com
