Send Us Your Questions for Fashion\'s Most Powerful Leaders

NEW YORK - In the glittering world of global fashion caring about improving the lot of billions of people mired in poverty in the developing world has become increasingly, well, fashionable.

Next Thursday and Friday in Rome, the IHT's fashion editor, Suzy Menkes, will convene the good and the great of the fashion and design industries at the annual IHT luxury conference, the industry confab that brings together hundreds of powerbrokers and the media who cover the trillion-dollar-a-year global fashion industry.

The theme of the conference this year is “The Promise of Africa: The Power of the Mediterranean.” The theme encompasses both the artistic aspects of the Mediterranean as a cauldron of creativity where influences and motifs are shared, exchanged, altered and incorporated. But it also seeks to address issues of development, poverty reduction and global social responsibility: what fashion, with its well-heeled producers and consumers owes the world, esp ecially the developing world - and especially Africa, as the continent's contribution of its style, vibrancy and resilience to fashion and the world are finally being acknowledged.

That's where you come in. Whether you have a question about fashion style or global development substance, we want to hear from you in the comments below.

We'll be livestreaming three conference sessions on Rendezvous on Thursday and Friday:

At about 9:15 CET on Thursday:

“Handmade in Africa”

Suzy will lead a Q&A with Simone Cipriani, the driving force behind
the Ethical Fashion Initiative at the International Trade Center in Geneva. (The I.T.C. is a joint body of the United Nations and the World Trade Organization.)

“I am passionate, I am Italian, I roar like a lion,” Mr. Cipriani told Suzy in an article in September, as they drove up Kenya's Great Rift Valley.

“The essence of the I.T.C. work is summed up in a single phrase: ‘Not Charity. Just Work.' ” Suzy wrote.

The goal is to join marginalized communities to the global (and lucrative) fashion chain.

“Connecting ‘the world's most marginalised people to the top of fashion's value chain for mutual benefit,' it enables communities of artisans and micro-manufacturers - the majority of them women - to thrive in association with the talents of the fashion world by fostering local creativity, enabling female employment, and promoting gender equality in order to reduce extreme poverty, according to a detailed brochure published by the ITC this month,” the Fashion of Business website reported in July, 2011.

In the livestreaming session, Mr. Cipriani will talk about his vision for luxury goods produced in Africa for both “small craft” and mainstream brands, the challenges of creating sustainable business models, and the ITC's ambitions for the future. During Q&A, he will be joined by Ilaria Venturini Fendi, the designer behind one of the companies engaged in manufacturing in Africa and empowering communities to transform their lives.

On Friday mid-morning, at about 10 CET :

“Positive change through fashion”

Suzy will linterview Bono and his wife, Ali Hewson, co-founders of EDUN, a global fashion brand seeking to bring positive change through trading with Africa. In this session, the couple will aim to show how EDUN proves that sustainable manufacturing is good business too.

And Friday afternoon, at about 4 CET:

“Mia Roma!”

Frida Giannini, creative director of Gucci and Giambattista Valli will wax poetic about the power of the Eternal City and how it has influenced the two very different Rome-raised designers.

So, what questions do you want Suzy to put to the leaders of the fashion world - whether about style or substance? And speaking of style vs. substance, do you believe that fashion can be sustainable and that development for the poorest in the world can go hand in hand with an industry whose greatest success is often built on consumption by the richest in the world?

Join the conversation here all weekend and on twitter using the #IHTLux, and come back here on Thursday and Friday to watch our livestreams and comment on Rendezvous, twitter and Facebook.