Stella Jean

Designer, Rome

«Multiculturalism is an incontrovertible element of our Italian DNA, and it is precisely from this common denominator that we must start afresh».

What is the part of your job that gives you the most satisfaction? Tell me something about your vision of the world as a black artist in Italy / Europe

[Being a black artist in Italy means] being able to make decisions, while knowing all the risks I face. Together with Edward Buchanan and Michelle Ngonmo, we have received heavy threats and intimidation in recent months, aimed at convincing us to abandon our call for equal opportunities. We did not take a step back and now 5 Black Talents of Made in Italy will open the Italian fashion week, and the first official working group composed of black professionals will be made official during the fashion week.

What would you say to your 13 year self? 

More than one thing! Your color is neither a stigma nor a fault. You can be proud and grateful, and no, you don't need straight hair to be beautiful. You feel alone because you are the first, an exception at the moment, but know that you are the first of millions of others, and soon you will not be alone anymore. I am part of a generation that has marked the experimental path and bears the heavy witness of the new multicultural Italianness. The only black person in my neighborhood, the only black person  in my school and so on... I would have gladly and on several occasions done without this pioneering task. This condition poised between two strong, indomitable and painful roots, Italian and Haitian, created in me as a child an outpost of vulnerability, where I was denied a priori the simple carefree exploration of the world, but I found myself precariously catapulted into having to calculate , even before learning to count, the consequences of my every action.

"Be careful Stella, if you are wrong you will always be judged twice as bad, and if you are not wrong it will be the minimum." This means being six years old then ten, then thirteen and being constantly on the lookout, in constant alarm. Inside me this skin of mine was the cause of all evil, and believe me, how many times would I have traded it for a slice of normality or for the gift of invisibility. To try to anticipate and avoid racially motivated attacks. Incredible as the social pressure is such that the slender character structure, still in precarious construction, drags you into the basement of the soul to think that if everyone says something their own, perhaps it is true, indeed, it is certainly right. absolute evil. Even the personal securities are questioned and do not represent a safe haven, because it may  be written that you are Italian on that piece of paper, but you with that dark skin are not, you cannot just be.

What changes do you hope to see in your sector in Italy in the next 5-10 years?

I want to see the change in the current year, not in 5 years. An equitable redistribution of opportunities based solely on a merit-based principle regardless of any color. And the simple application of common sense on the part of those who think they can stem the flow of multiculturalism, which specifically is ongoing and irreversible.

Multiculturalism is an incontrovertible element of our Italian DNA, and it is precisely from this common denominator that we should start afresh. We are all mestizos! the sooner we understand it and above all we accept it, and the sooner we will overcome this problem together. Italy, for example, is a cultural crossroads and melting pot with very few peers in the world, this means that it already has the elements to solve the problem of discrimination, since it itself owes its 'great beauty' to the extraordinary cultural stratification of which it is daughter.