Benetton Group

David Kirby AIDS campaign, 1992 The peak of Oliviero Toscani's years at Benetton, and still the hardest image here to look at. That year Toscani stopped shooting his own pictures and began running news photographs under the United Colors of Benetton logo. The best known was Therese Frare's black-and-white photograph of AIDS activist David Kirby on his deathbed with his family, colorized for the ad. Critics called it exploitation, some were uneasy at its likeness to a Pietà, and some called for a boycott. Kirby's father answered that Benetton "didn't use us, or exploit us. We used them," because it carried his son's picture around the world. Whether it sold sweaters or sold Benetton as a brand with opinions is the debate it started.