Stella Jean denounces loud and clear the lack of commitment of the Camera della Moda (CNMI) in favor of minorities. While the Italo-Haitian designer was to make her comeback on the catwalks on the occasion of the next Milan Fashion Week, scheduled from February 21 to 27, she chose to withdraw from the calendar, just like the WAMI collective ( We are made in Italy), which it sponsors and which brings together Italian designers with an immigrant background. She explained herself in an unexpected intervention, interrupting the press conference organized this Wednesday by the transalpine fashion organ to present the program for its next edition.
As published in the provisional calendar, Stella Jean was to march on Saturday February 25, while the WAMI collective was to open the event on Wednesday February 22 in a digital format, following physically marching for the premiere last September. For the past two years, he has inaugurated Fashion Week, and had become the symbol of change within Italian fashion. But this season, due to a lack of means to complete their collections, the four Italian designers from Haiti, Vietnam, Madagascar and South Korea have decided to withdraw from the program.
“Since 2019, we have been running campaigns to denounce the systemic racism that we are victims of. But it is only since 2020, with the Black Lives Matter movement, that everything has changed and the doors have opened. We have finally been heard and we were able to make our project to highlight minorities a reality. For four seasons, the Chambre de la Mode supported us by lighting the spotlight on our work, by financing videos and our collections. However, in January, it informed that the funds were finished”, explains Stella Jean, at the origin of the WAMI collective.
Born in Rome to a Turinese father and a Haitian mother, the forty-year-old, self-taught stylist, who has been parading in Milan since 2012, has always highlighted in her creations the traditional techniques of artisans from around the world in a strongly mixed spirit, seductive in a short time. the most important multi-brand boutiques. Recognized by institutions, and in particular the National Chamber of Italian Fashion, of which she is a member, in recent years she has become the spokesperson for minorities on the fashion scene.
During the Camera della Moda press conference, Stella Jean intervened vehemently accusing the organization of having significantly reduced its support for the We Are Made In Italy (WAMI) collective and denouncing the under-representation of minorities in the ecosystem. Italian fashion. “I cannot be the only black designer making made in Italy to be included in the Chamber of Italian Fashion. This season, the management of the institution has ejected us by not giving the means to the small independent brands of the collective of finish their collection. Of course, they made a slot and a space available to us, but without a collection what’s the point? We were forced to withdraw,” she lambasted.
“We thought we had started to change the situation, but unfortunately it is a failed revolution, leaving aside the weakest and most fragile. Personally, I have also been the victim of heavy and multiple threats due to my positions once morest racism”, she added, choosing to give up her own parade as a sign of solidarity with the members of the collective. In the end, only the Italian-Moroccan brand Zineb Hazim & Karim Daoudi, which had participated in the second edition of WAMI, appears in the schedule of presentations for the imminent Milan Fashion Week.
“Our support for the collective was exceptional, we cannot extend it indefinitely. We are not a company, but an institution which can take, piecemeal, exceptional initiatives to seek to give visibility to small brands, who need it. Over these two years, we have always maintained our commitments”, defended the president of the CNMI, Carlo Capasa, underlining the many multicultural initiatives, which will punctuate the February calendar.
Starting with the “A global movement to uplift underrepresented brands” project, led by the African-American Teneshia Carr, founder of the independent fashion magazine Blanc, who will present the creations from the A. Potts brand by African-American designer from Detroit, Aaron Potts, from the New York label Diotima by Jamaican Rachel Scott and Nigerian Patience Torlowei.
Another great first, on Friday September 24, will be held “the Black Carpet Awards” rewarding “the champions of diversity and inclusiveness in the sectors of fashion, design, art, gastronomy, music, technology, business, sport and cinema. “. The event is promoted by the Afro Fashion Association, a non-profit association led by the Italian-Cameroonian Michelle Francine Ngomno, also at the origin of the WAMI collective. The latter has also selected twelve designers with Vogue Italy, who will present their collection on Wednesday February 22 in the Modes boutique, still as part of Fashion Week.
“These are all great initiatives, but they do not concern designers with an immigrant background in Italy who practice true made in Italy”, laments Stella Jean, who expected a real commitment from Italian institutions, beyond the spot initiative launched in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement.
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