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| - Benetton on Thursday severed ties with renowned photographer Oliviero Toscani, whose shock images contributed to the fashion brand's success in the 1980s, over his comments on a deadly 2018 bridge collapse. Benetton Group is the biggest single shareholder in Atlantia, which owns Autostrade per l'Italia, the company operating a motorway part of which collapsed in Genoa in 2018, killing 43 people. "But who's interested in a bridge collapse?" the photographer said with typical provocation during a radio interview on Wednesday, later saying his comments were taken out of context. A statement from Benetton on Thursday said the company "with its president Luciano Benetton, disassociates itself in the most absolute way from the statements of Oliviero Toscani regarding the collapse of the Morandi Bridge." The company "takes note of the impossibility of continued collaboration with the creative director," it said. "Luciano Benetton and the whole company renew their sincere closeness to the families of the victims and all those who have been involved in this terrible tragedy." Toscani was behind shock advertising campaigns that contributed to the Benetton clothing line's global success between 1982 and 2000. The daring campaigns included a 1982 image with religious overtones of a man dying of AIDS and a 1989 poster which featured a black woman breastfeeding a white baby. "I'm sorry that extrapolated and confused words can make you think such a crazy thing as I don't care about the (Morandi) bridge," Toscani tweeted on Wednesday after the interview. "Only wickedness can exploit such a thing. I, like everyone, am interested in and indignant about this tragedy, but it's absurd that some journalists try to hold me to account." cjo/bmm
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