Seven Oaks Magazine.

"Jailwear since 1898" goes the ad promoting the 'Haeftling' (meaning "inmate" or "prisoner") clothing line produced in Berlin's Tegel prison. Produced for prisoners by prisoners you might think. This was the case until last year when Stephan Bohle, CEO of the Berlin-based Herr Ledesi ad agency, stumbled across an article about the clothes being manufactured in Europe's largest prison. He managed to convince the prison authorities of the wider financial benefits offered by a move into commercial production.

According to Bohle, Haeftling offers just what the fashionable party set who hang out in Berlin's Mitte and Prenzlauer Berg districts want. "Brands which tell a story, communicate an authentic message and get it across with credibility. After all, there are thousands of kinds of shoes available, but shoes made and worn by convicts are something very special."

Bohle's agency masterminded a "mugshot" type ad campaign, which the agency plans to build upon with magazine spreads and configured "guerrilla" marketing techniques. The opening of an online shop in July was such that its virtual doors had to be closed until November; such was the level of demand. Taking its cue from Amazon, the website cheerily points out that "customers who bought this product also purchased." and reminds customers that they now offer "original jailwear from prisons in Saxony Anhalt, Brandenburg, Bavaria, and Switzerland." (Haeftling has no plans to adopt Lush-style marketing tactics of including the name, crime, and prison number of the prisoner who made your functional but stylish prison shirt).

Mindful of criticisms that Haeftling might somehow be glamorising life behind bars, Bohle counters by pointing that money made is directed into much needed investment in the prisons and to the prisoners themselves, with prisoners offered a guaranteed base wage - between 7 and 12 euros per day, according to job and experience. It is hoped that the Haeftling range will help create 30 more jobs in a prison where around one in three of the 1,700 prisoners has no workplace.

Despite receiving a generally positive response, some critics consider this limited move in the direction of prison self-financing as being the first step down the long road to American-style privatisation of the penal system. Some former inmates are also worried that the cool imagery might deflect the buying public's attentions from the harsher realities of daily prison life.

Plans are already afoot to extend the product range and open the label's first flagship Berlin store this year. And the posters? "We really wanted to use an inmate for reasons of believability," says Bohle. "But the authorities had some doubts and we had to agree on a compromise." You guessed it - out on probation.