A Sicilian store has started a fashion world war after using the image of Adolf Hitler in their latest advertising campaign. New Form, which stocks well known brands such as Miss Sixty, Diesel and Calvin Clien, has adorned the Palermo with 18ft posters depicting the former Nazi leader in a striking pink uniform.

A large red heart has replaced the Fuhrer’s swastika armband and the poster’s slogan reads “Change Style – Don’t Follow Your Leader”. The campaign is aimed at the store’s teenage and twenty-something trendy shoppers.

City bigwigs have failed to find any humour in the campaign, however, claiming that it is against the country’s constitutional principles to use the image of a person responsible for the worst chapter of history in the last century. Complaints were made to Palermo’s mayor about the poster created by local ad agency Zerocento.

Zerocento, however, claims that the ad’s critics are overreacting and that in fact the poster ridicules, not celebrates, Hitler. They say the campaign invites young people to break away from their peers and find their own style.

So far, none of the brands stocked by New Form have commented on the posters. And if the current controversy isn’t enough for New Form, Zerocento is planning a new campaign in the next few weeks featuring the Chinese Communist leader Mao Tse Tung.