“We Are Made in Italy”—A Milan Fashion Week Showcase Celebrates the Work of Five BIPOC Designers
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The Italian fashion system was recently called to a reckoning over issues of inclusivity, diversity and racism by the powerful intervention of designers Stella Jean and Sansovino’s Edward Buchanan. The road to bringing about effective long-term change will certainly be long and bumpy; Italian society has yet to come to terms with endemic cultural issues of racism and xenophobia. But a first step has at last been made. Conversations have taken place, hopefully opening doors to a way forward.
One of the players involved in broadening the spectrum of Italy’s fashion landscape, granting access and visibility to a wider pool of talents, is the Afro Fashion Association. Non-profit and volunteer-driven, it’s a platform for cross-cultural exchange, fostering the creativity and potential of emerging designers of color. The driving force behind it is Cameroon-born, Italy-based Michelle Francine Ngonmo, who founded it in 2015. Since then, the Association has organized events, workshops, and exhibitions; operating as a sort of ecosystem, it has also promoted the Afro Fashion Week Milan, where a selection of talents Ngonmo has scouted have presented their collections.
This year, together with Jean and Buchanan, she selected five designers to showcase. Each of them will receive mentorship and guidance to help expand their creative potential and brand-building skills. During Milan Fashion Week, their work was showcased in a space at the White Show at Superstudio; to further celebrate their presence as part of this seasons’ CNMI calendar, a video called We Are Made in Italy—The Fab Five Bridge Builders was digitally broadcasted. It was a meaningful closing to a digital/physical fashion season like no other—with fewer people in attendance, but full of energy and goodwill for a better future.
I sat down with Michelle Ngonmo to learn more about her work and the five designers of color who were part of this year’s showcase during at Milan Fashion Week.
Tell me a little about yourself and how the Afro Fashion Association came about?
I was born in Cameroon; I arrived in Italy with my family when I was a kid. We settled in Ferrara, where I did my studies in communication, specializing in foreign languages. I did internships in Belgium and France to broaden my education. I’m naturally quite curious and I like learning. When I was at university, I became extremely involved in activism, and that brought me a deeper understanding of other cultures and their many problems. Being Black and living in a society where I didn’t see representation of the multiculturalism that was my actual life and the reality I was living, I decided to act and, as the saying goes, to bring my water to the mill. I started organizing events, also working with the city’s authorities. That’s how I became president of Ferrara’s African students’ association. I’ve always kept strong cultural bonds with my native Cameroon, working with universities and cultural institutions there. When you live in a society that always reminds you from where you came, you have no choice but to celebrate your roots. You have to embrace your ‘double culture’ and make it a point of strength and pride. I understood early on that I had to deepen the bond with my native culture while keeping alive the sense of belonging to two different cultures, Cameroonian and Italian.
Italy is apparently a welcoming, open culture. However, racism and xenophobia are problematic issues that haven’t been properly confronted.
I don’t want to say that Italy isn’t a racist country, because we know very well that racism exists everywhere. In France, in the US—it’s everywhere, we’re not talking fairy tales here. Yet there are different stories that have to be taken into account when talking about these issues, and I don’t like to be superficial on such complex matters. It’d take days, if not years, of studies on the socio-historical causes that led to racism and xenophobia before getting the complete picture. That said, I’m not afraid of racism in Italy. What I’m afraid of is paternalism—it’s worst than racism, it’s much more devious and sneaky and it’s underestimated. A paternalistic attitude means that if I’m a Caucasian-European, I have the right to teach you what to do, what’s right and what’s wrong, and that you as POC must listen to me and follow my rules. Paternalism means that I, as a Caucasian-European, have the right to educate you. It’s a very, very dangerous attitude. So we have to take action and to change the rules—nobody will do it for us. But I really do believe that things can change—that’s why I keep fighting.