Thailand's wish to become the fashion hub in Asia has found a great supporter in the unlikely outfit of a Thai Buddhist Monk who has set up an "Italian Fashion Academy" in his Bangkok temple.
"I got the idea some 8 years ago, when I met two Italian designers who came to sculpt a jade Buddha image for our temple in Bangkok. It was very different than all the other Buddha statues in Thailand, the Italians made a very smart sculpture, bringing the Buddha statue to life," said head monk Luangphor Viriyang Sirintharo.
For the past three years, the 84-year-old Bangkok Monk, who himself turns his back on fashion in favor of his traditional saffron robes of a Thai Monk, has patronized Thailand's only internationally recognized designer and fashion school at the Wat Dammamongkol temple in Bangkok.
"I am a Buddhist monk, but I am also a Thai person who loves his country and if I can help, I will surely do. In Thailand no one has set up a "Top Fashion Design School" for students and I want Thai fashion design students to have the very best teachers."
The Bangkok temple, which houses the worlds largest jade Buddha, looks like it will play a key role in Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's 1.8 billion baht (US$ 456 million) campaign to transform Bangkok into the Paris fashion Mecca of Asia.
The "Bangkok Fashion City" initiative, which aim is to transform Thailand's reputation as a haven for fake Rolex watches, copied fashion designs of Gucci and Louis Vuitton designs into Asia's fashion hub, was launched in February 2004 with a huge shopping centre extravaganzas and a fashion street parade big enough to shut down the centre of Bangkok's teeming city.
Thailand's current government hopes to open its own Bangkok fashion school later this year, but until that happens, would-be Thai designers will only be able to learn about fashion and design via an 82 year old Monk Luangphor Viriyang Sirintharoget and the Dammamongkol temple in Bangkok.
"Don't forget that only about 50 years ago all education in Thailand was given in the temples, so there is no problem about teaching fashion design here, but some to provoking designs we do not allow in the temple and we can also not allow female models and mannequins, so we have setup a classroom outside the temple for those things," the 82 year old Thai Monk said in his little office at the Bangkok temple.
The fashion school is run by the "Accademia Italiana Design Institute", which sends their teachers from Florence to Thailand to teach Thai students the secrets of fashion and interior design.
Some 100 students are split between the two courses and the cream of the crop are sent to complete their masters in Italy, where one has already taken second place in a very prestigious Italian design competition, named the "Echi di Luce".
The 100,000 Thai Baht (US$ 2,500) annual school fee is high by Thai standards but is only a fraction of the cost of going abroad, and the temple academy tries to subsidize needy students.
Accademia Italiana director Vincenzo Giubba, who negotiates between meditating Buddhist devotees to reach the classroom door, says the goal is to promote a unique design sense, capturing the creativity which is abounded in Thailand.
"We just teach them design. Not Italian style or design, but fashion techniques which I hope will inspire them to create hundreds of different and original styles," he says.
In Thailand, temples play host to everything from AIDS hospices to tiger sanctuaries, so a fashion school housed next to the worlds largest jade Buddha has not raised any murmurs of disapproval from the Thai people.
