Stella Jean’s name might be absent from the Milan Fashion Week show schedule for spring/summer 2021, but she will be making her presence felt at the week-long co-ed event later this month.
The celebrated Haitian-Italian designer has joined forces with the African-American, Milan-based designer Edward Buchanan, Afro Fashion Week Milan founder Michelle Ngonmo and the Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana (CNMI) president, Carlo Capasa, to launch a working group called Black Lives Matter In Italian Fashion. The announcement comes a month after Jean and Buchanan wrote an open letter to the CNMI, titled “Do #BLM in Italian Fashion?”, in which they asked the executive board of 15 to advocate for “fashion reform on the taboo topic of race in Italian fashion”.
As a part of the initiative, representatives from Italian fashion houses will be invited to participate in a think tank taking place on 22 September, which will highlight the need for concrete action regarding more internal and structural diversity behind the scenes at Italian fashion companies. “Discussing fashion reform and setting a precedent for rules to be adopted by the CNMI from day one,” will be key talking points, says Jean speaking to Vogue over the phone from her home in Rome. “From this moment on, [people] won’t have the excuse to say they didn’t know this [discrimination] was happening.”
It’s been a long time coming. Despite the Italian fashion council comprising over 100 companies, Jean remains the only Black-owned brand on the CNMI roster. “My uniqueness in Italy is truly incomprehensible. In a field like fashion, that prides itself on celebrating progressiveness, creativity and freedom of expression, injustice and prejudice continue to have a notable grip on the industry at large,” she says.
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