Vivienne Westwood MAN held its Spring/Summer 2017 men's collection show at Citylife Palace Piazza on June 19th. It has been four years since Julian Assange, the journalist and founder of the whistleblower website WikiLeaks, was suspected of sexual assault and sought refuge at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London in June 2012, where he applied for political asylum. In February of this year, a United Nations Commission of Inquiry called on the UK and Sweden to release Assange, and in May, the FBI declared to a US federal court that it would continue to actively pursue Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. In response to this situation, Vivienne Westwood is one of the brands calling for his release. This season's show began with a video message announcing the brand's participation in an international event celebrating whistleblowers and freedom. The event, dubbed "Assange Week," which Westwood also participated in, kicked off in Milan and was held simultaneously in 10 major cities around the world, including the Pompidou Center in Paris, the Volksbühne in Berlin, the Beaux-Arts in Brussels, the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid, Belgrade, Naples, and Sarajevo. Speakers and performers at the event included Patti Smith, Noam Chomsky, Brian Eno, Slavoj Zizek, Michael Moore, PJ Harvey, and many other prominent figures.