Florence - Call it a global victory for underwear rights or the biggest mass change in fashion history.

Now we know that models have to be masters of the quick alteration, but Belgium designer Dirk Bikkembergs has set a new record. He got 100 footballers to change their underwear - in public - in the space of a mere 10 seconds.

Soccer players model the underwear collection of Dirk Bikkembergs at Pitti,
the men's fashion trade fair, in Florence, Italy on Friday, June 22, 2007.[FWD]

It made for the wackiest single image this week in Florence at Pitti, men's fashion biggest trade fair.

"We like to take a few risks, especially with the models," beamed Belgium-born Bikkembergs backstage after the "show" to launch his underwear collection.

The guys, buffed, oiled and many bearing five-inch wide numerals painted on their backs turned their underwear inside out every 15 minutes during ten-second blackouts. The briefs were all white on one side, black-n-white on the other. Not the easiest of maneuvers as they were all perched on top of a giant podium around which the audience circulated in Stazione Leopoldo, the former train station that Pitti uses for massive visual events.

We'll admit his name is a bit mouthful. Even La Repubblica, Italy's leading national daily, managed to misspell his name with an N rather than an M. But Dirk is a committed man.

Though a hard-core fashionista, Bikkembergs owns FC Fossombrone a football team playing in the Italian amateur leagues, whose players featured in this week's fashion drama. Dirk kits out Fossombrone from football boots to team kit, training gear to after match clobber.

His long-term goal? A multi-ethnic world cup for young non-professional players. And his first stop in Pitti this week was a multi-ethnic runway show were 100 guys almost showed it all.