Sex sells, it’s said. But does it sell plastics? Well, yes, and not only thanks to the well publicised escapades of Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi's “bunga bunga” and enterprising businessman Carlo Pagani. Inspired by Berlusconi’s antics, Pagani – not to be confused with the astrophysicist, footballer and botanical writer, three others who share the name – is working to make plastics even more popular with the young and young-at-heart.

Pagani’s plastics and fragrances factory near Bergamo, which supplies leading cosmetics and fashion brands, already has invested EUR 200,000 in a new line of bracelets, necklaces, key rings, perfumes and lingerie named after Berlusconi’s apparently favourite party slogan. If the baubles really do have aphrodiasic properties as claimed, the company soon will have a new line of clients, too.

But could the clever entrepreneur encounter trouble with his many namesakes and others, who lay claim to the bunga bunga name – which seems to be even older than Berlusconi? Perhaps most fittingly, in Tagalog slang it means “something fashionable.” And while neither the PM nor Pagani lay claim to being literary, bunga bunga is also attributed to a century-old hoax on a British warship crew cocked up by English writer Virginia Woolf and friends pretending to be the Prince of Abyssinia and his entourage.

That’s something Italy’s leader also might find amusing.