Paper Monitor
11:55 UK time, Thursday, 21 September 2006
A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.
A black Kate Moss stares from the cover of The (Red) Independent - “NOT a fashion statement” insists the strapline on the paper’s Africa issue.
But in a paper guest designed by Giorgio Armani - and with a wall-chart featuring Moss, a woman with fashion entwined in her DNA - can it be anything but?
While the front page bears the stamp of the fashion designer’s pared-back style, it is harder to spot the Armani aesthetic inside, with faces, facts and figures shoe-horned in around the ads.
And what’s this? In amongst the articles on the continent blessed and blighted in unequal measure is a full page ad for Armani’s new perfume. Later, “desire meets virtue” in ads for various chic Red products, the purchase of which helps fund the fight against Aids.
Sure, the contribution from each purchase will make a difference. But surely better to bung the £150 you might otherwise spend on the Red handset, or the £90 on Red trainers, or £90-odd on Armani’s own Red sunglasses - straight into the pot?
And there is but one Africa story in the other papers today, and the Indy doesn’t even mention it - the unveiling of the fossilised remains of a baby ape-girl from 3.3m years ago, found in Ethiopia and believed to give clues to our evolutionary ancestry.
But Moss, bless her, does look very fetching painted black.
The 
