Meet the BIPOC collective challenging and changing the Italian fashion industry

This article is part of our Vogue Business Membership package. To enjoy unlimited access to Member-only reporting and insights, our NFT Tracker and TikTok Trend Tracker, weekly Technology and Sustainability Edits and exclusive event invitations, sign up for Membership here. After the murder of George Floyd in 2020, Stella Jean posed a question to Italian fashion governing body Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana (CNMI): do Black Lives Matter in Italian fashion? The Italian-Haitian designer and Giorgio Armani protégé boycotted Milan Fashion Week (MFW) that year and stated that she would not return until she was no longer the only Black Italian designer showing. This season she’s back on the schedule, and she’s not alone. We Are Made in Italy (WAMI), a collective whose goal is to bring multiculturalism to the forefront of Italian fashion, will present its first physical show (after two digital editions) on 23 September during MFW. Jean co-founded the collective in 2020, alongside Sansovino 6 founder Edward Buchanan, who grew up in the US and served as design director at Bottega Veneta in the late 90s; and Italian-born talent scout and Afro Fashion Week Milan founder Michelle Ngonmo. The grassroots initiative wants to “change a broken system so that in the future [BIPOC designers] will not have to battle as we are”, Buchanan says. Experts agree that BIPOC designers need more visibility at MFW. “Learning to live as a multicultural society is still a new phenomenon in Italy. There is very little education available in Italy regarding cultural bias, unconscious bias, racism, and microaggressions,” says the Fashion Minority Alliance’s Italy committee head Sofia Celeste. Immigration in Italy ticked up in the 1990s; children of that immigration boom are now joining the workforce. “They were born here but not automatically as Italian citizens, in a country where something as nuanced as an accent or how one dresses can marginalise someone from entering the right circles.” President of Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana (CNMI) Carlo Capasa says that the governing body has been working on a D&I agenda since 2017 when it launched a working group. “From there CNMI has started a journey of deeper study and awareness on these topics,” Capasa says. It has published a D&I manifesto co-developed with consultant Kimberly Jenkins in 2019; organised two editions of the “Including Diversity” talk; organised inclusive backstage training for hairstylists with Show Division and Wella; worked with startup Mygrants to offer 15 refugees and migrants access to free educational services in fashion and placements in side CNMI member brands; developed a number of projects that offer educational webinars on diversity; and offered a room inside the CNMI Fashion Hub in February 2022 focusing on ethical fashion as it pertains to disadvantaged women, victims of violence, immigrants and refugees. Industry observers say while there’s still work to be done, this Milan Fashion Week is more diverse than previous editions: GmbH founders Benjamin Huseby and Serhat Isik, who are from working-class Muslim families, became creative directors of Italian heritage brand Trussardi in May 2021; Filipino designer Rhuigi Villaseñor joined Bally in January; and British-Trinidadian designer Maximilian Davis will show his first collection for heritage house Ferragamo this season. Capasa points out that CNMI has given independent designers free space to show on the calendar, including in partnership with WAMI, which has a free presence at the CNMI Fashion Hub during MFW. At the same time, WAMI says it is now mostly self-funded and has struggled to gain local support and funding as organisers worry that the enthusiasm around diversity two years ago has started to fade. Building a designer collective The theme for WAMI’s collective show this season is multicultural storytelling. Twelve designers will show, including a new cohort of five hand-picked by Ngonmo from her growing database of 1,400 designers, Jean and Buchanan themselves, and five designers selected from the previous two WAMI editions. Previous WAMI talent includes Claudia Gisèle Ntsama, who is now working at Valentino’s design office; emerging independent designer Joy Meribe; and accessories designer Karim Daoudi. This year’s cohort and the additional WAMI designers showcasing will not be revealed until the show. There’s no formal application process to enter WAMI, an intentional choice on the part of the organisers who say candidates with the most privilege are most likely to succeed and have less imposter syndrome, according to Ngonmo. “You need to convince them that they are worthy, because they have it in their minds that they won’t be considered [in fashion],” she says, adding that buyers and showrooms have turned collections away. “The biggest challenge is that people tend to think we're just a white society, especially when it comes to ‘Made in Italy’.” While Ngonmo scouts the talent, Buchanan and Jean mentor them on everything including selecting materials and silhouettes, building a collection and navigating a system where there are structural barriers for BIPOC creatives. “We’ve worked in the industry and we know what we’re up against. So [WAMI] is a collective that’s first and foremost for protection. It’s for information, community, building skills, and preparation,” says Buchanan. How to fund a systemic revolution WAMI is a non-profit with the majority of funding provided by the three co-founders themselves. For the first edition, which was digital, CNMI sponsored the production of the show and collections while the co-founders invested an additional €7,000 of their own money. In 2021, CNMI said they would sponsor the digital show, while the co-founders invested €15,000 to foot additional costs, according to Ngonmo. Capasa said that WAMI has been offered free showroom and presentation space this season, for its first in-person event: “This year we made available spaces, locations and calendar entries, free of charge, in addition to all the support in terms of communication with buyers and the press.” Even with that support, costs are mounting, underscoring the staggering expenses involved in having a physical presence. Garment production for the designers costs €45,000, on top of the €45,000 it takes to put on the show, bringing the total to €90,000. WAMI has had to keep budgets tight and lean on support from the Italian BIPOC community, who Jean says have offered to show and promote the looks without compensation. This year, three capsule collections were funded by Condé Nast publications Vogue Italia, GQ and Vanity Fair (Vogue Business shares a parent company with these publications, Condé Nast), one was funded by Italian media company NSS, and one internally by the co-founders. The co-founders have paid over €25,000 out of pocket this year to fund both the in-person show and collections. However, self-funding may not be sustainable long-term. “We are chipping away at the required €90,000 by any means necessary,” said Jean. “We are making every effort to pay what is required, admittedly with enormous difficulty. We have drawn from our personal and family funds to meet this opportunity to decisively face the national and international market.” But those funds are reaching their limits. The organisers want to see more support from the global luxury fashion giants, including giving their designers a substantial platform for growth. “The industry needs to think past token initiatives and invest in building long-term relationships and helping these individuals and brands access the right factories and artisan workshops, assisting these brands in asserting themselves internationally for the long-term and marketing themselves,” says the Fashion Minority Alliance’s Celeste. “I’ve seen rising stars shoot up, garner a lot of press, and come back the next season without enough money to host a fashion show or produce their line in large enough quantities, only to fade into oblivion.” The collective acknowledges that funding often comes with strings attached. “When you start accepting large-scale funding from external organisations, you have to always consider who the money is from and what their views are. Are they actually there to lend their help for optics?” says Buchanan. “We want to create a space where we as the WAMI collective are free to speak our mind without concern of losing that partner or thinking about money,” adds Ngonmo. “I think here in Italy people think diversity is something for charity, they don’t really acknowledge the talent or value of that person.” Experts say the Italian fashion sector’s power structure remains top down, which inhibits true multicultural equity, says Celeste. “MFW [has] made an ardent effort to host special guests from every country and every continent for years now. The problem is that there aren’t enough leaders who hail from underrepresented groups in the Italian fashion arena and this doesn’t reflect our actual cultural fabric,” she says. “It’s a system that doesn’t want to be disrupted. They think that the Italian fashion system is not racist and that they’ve always supported talents,” Buchanan adds. “In order for those structures to change, the people at the top have to be willing to relinquish some of that power and understand that the people at the bottom also need to be given the space to make decisions.” The collective ultimately wants to create its own fashion system. “We’re not asking for favours, we’re asking to be respected, we’re asking to be understood. And we’re gonna bulldoze forward whether they want us to exist or not,” says Buchanan. Key takeaway: We Are Made in Italy is striving to break down systemic barriers for BIPOC Italian designers whose heritage often inhibits them from being considered true Italians by the wider industry. The main challenge for the collective is to secure local support and funding from an industry that is reluctant to change. To receive the Vogue Business newsletter, sign up here. Comments, questions or feedback? Email us at feedback@voguebusiness.com. More from this author: Yeezy Gap is ending. What now? Allbirds launches first plant-based leather sneaker All eyes on Davis debut as Ferragamo sales rise 20% in first half

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