At Milan Fashion Week, the Black Carpet Awards celebrate Italy’s new generation of creatives | Canada Voices

At Milan Fashion Week, the Afro Fashion Association (AFA) staged one of the season’s most essential events on Wednesday evening, bringing together leading BIPOC fashion creatives for the Black Carpet Awards. AFA founder Michelle Francine Ngonmo delivered an emotional speech about the event – now in its third year – to a packed house at Teatro Manzoni, a theatre in the heart of Milan’s fashion district.

“I know what it is to have no strength to continue to dream because you think you don’t belong to some places,” she said, taking the stage in a flowing white look by Cameroonian designer Azambou Cybelle. She explained that she created the AFA and the awards because “it reminds us that despite difficulties, there are voices uniting instead of dividing.”

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Continuing that mission, AFA’s Afro Fashion Week kicked off this week, giving BIPOC designers the opportunity to present their own runway shows with full creative freedom. The event addresses the reality that AFA’s designers rarely have the chance to appear on Milan’s main fashion calendar, which is dominated by giants like Gucci and Versace – brands owned by multinational corporations.

In the invitation, guests were asked to wear BIPOC designs. The result was a party room filled with creations ranging from Pharrell to Stella Jean and beyond. A number of attendees wore Afro Fashion Week success stories such as British Nigerian talent Tokyo James, Vietnamese designer Phan Dang Hoang and Ethiopian brand Mastewal Alemu (all presenting runway shows this weekend).

Naomi Campbell, unable to attend the awards in person, called the gathering in a video message a “vital celebration about our power of community.” She hailed the AFA as a force for “true inclusion, authentic representation,” applauded the nominees for being “the architects of change,” and urged the room to carry her words forward: “remember this – from visibility to victory.”

The first presenter of the evening was Canadian Celia Sears, wearing a black lace dress with bishop sleeves designed by Kirk Pickersgill for Toronto-based fashion house Greta Constantine. As CEO of Show Division, a beauty talent agency she founded in Milan in 2015, Sears’ presence reflected the Black Carpet Awards’ commitment to change. The event has helped luxury fashion brands and backstage professionals recognize the importance of hiring diverse talent and educating the European fashion industry about BIPOC hair, skin, and bodies with the guidance of experts in Black cosmetics and grooming.

Sears awarded Somali Italian author and journalist Igiaba Scego with the Leader of Change Legacy award. Other notable winners included Milan-based stylist and textile designer Augusta Carter, artist Rediet Longo, and Ethiopian-born Italian soprano Mariam Battistelli.

Sears was part of the jury that selected the winners, along with fashion designers Tokyo James and Stella Jean, and music producer, fashion designer and trans rights advocate Honey Dijon.

Dijon, who was visiting from New York, is known for remixing hits by Madonna and won a Grammy in 2023, for her work on Beyoncé’s Renaissance album.

Dijon said that the event is more than a hot ticket during fashion week. “It’s an important message as well because it’s a platform for people normally left out of the bigger fashion and design conversation, especially POC creatives.” She added that amplifying these voices has only become more important in the face of rising fascism.

“Having the opportunities to express your creativity can be limited solely because of your skin colour. The Black Carpet Awards, just by existing, brings awareness to that fact… and the lack of access and opportunities for us to flourish,” she continued. “We don’t need any more advocacy, we need opportunity.”

In a panel discussion on Friday evening at Milan’s art and fashion boutique Corso Como, Ngonmo and Sansovino 6 knitwear founder and artistic director Edward Buchanan (Bottega Veneta’s first and only design director) spoke further about the importance of the awards.

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Joined by textile artist Damian Ajavon and Richmond Orlando Mensah, founder of the popular African cultural publication Manju Journal, the group discussed how events like the Black Carpet Awards go well beyond highlighting an underserved community and should be considered a pipeline for shifting fashion’s lens worldwide.

“BIPOC creatives don’t need to be thought of as trends a corporation brings in for special projects anymore,” explained Ngonmo. Occasions like Afro Fashion Week are “all about saying that our talents are equal to the big designers of the big brands,” she continued.

Ngonmo also noted that although issues around resources and funding remain a difficult reality, she has seen progress.

“We have made the change,” she said. “I started my journey ten years ago, and I’ve seen designers flourish and make it to the main fashion week calendar.” Set on the same day as the Ferrari and Dolce & Gabbana shows, the AFA’s runway events have been inundated with requests for seats – especially for Tokyo James, who won the LVMH prize in 2022, highlighting the impact of recognition from the broader fashion industry.