DOING TIME ... Dolce & Gabbana

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Prison uniform is set for a major makeover

VISITING time at prison could be about to get a lot more glamorous — in Italy, at least.

Fashion designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana — otherwise known as D&G, have been sentenced to 20 months in jail for tax evasion.

The pair — who have appealed the sentence — dressed some of the world’s most desirable women and count Madonna, Kylie, and Kate Moss as friends as well as customers, but it didn’t stop the flamboyant pair picking up a one year and eight month sentence.

They were accused of hiding millions of euros from Italian tax authorities. The trial judge said the designers moved their brand to a Luxembourg-based holding company to protect their royalties of around one billion euros. One billion euros? That is a quite a lot of dresses, even though they’re not cheap.

Having said that, they’d have had to sell a lot more to make a billion if they’d dreamed up the MWD — the Minimum Wage Dress. I don’t know what’s more criminal though — D&G not paying their fair share in tax, or the fact a company is marketing a dress priced the same as an hour’s pay on the minimum wage for under-18s (£3.68) to “enable ladies to look super sophisticated, no matter how little cash they have to spare.”

What about the people making the dresses? I doubt they’ll see anything close to that hourly rate for working excruciatingly long days in dangerous conditions.

Have we forgotten about the garment factory in Bangladesh that collapsed, killing more than 1,100 people?

Those workers were literally slaving away night and day to keep up with Western demand for cheap clothing. It’s the country’s most valuable export industry. Bangladesh’s government and garment manufacturers are campaigning to close dangerous factories and make safety a priority, although many in the government and the industry said they would not be shocked if another terrible tragedy happened.

It seems a scandalous price to pay just so that some ladies can look super sophisticated on a budget. It’s one extreme to the other. Both high-end fashion and low-cost clothing are cheating the system and neither are putting the profits to good use.

When it comes to personal safety — for women out on their own — there are a few options on the market to deter potential predators.

There are rape alarms, pepper sprays and self-defence flashlights. The latest must-have for your handbag in China have been dubbed ‘anti-pervert’ stockings.

They’re basically hairy tights — that make the wearer look like their legs haven’t seen a razor or wax strip in years.

I don’t know if they were specifically designed as some sort of deterrent, but I’m struggling to think why else you’d come up with these or why you’d buy them.