Nigeria-born designer Joy Meribe opens Milan Fashion Week

The Italian National Fashion Chamber tapped Meribe to open six days of womenswear previews after her inaugural collection for the "We are Made in Italy" initiative found commercial success

Joy Meribe opened Milan Fashion Week with her debut runway collection, a concrete success for a movement to promote diversity in Italian fashion just a year after launching.

The Italian National Fashion Chamber tapped Joy Meribe to open six days of womenswear previews for Spring-Summer 2022 after her inaugural collection for the “We are Made in Italy” initiative last year found commercial success.

“Beyond whatever video, proclamation or manifesto that we make, the real test is whether clients buy your products. Joy passed that exam,” said Italian-Haitian designer Stella Jean, who helped launch the initiative in the summer of 2020, asking the question, “Do Black Lives Matter in Italian Fashion?” inspired by the U.S. movement and following racists gaffes by major Italian fashion houses.

“It wouldn’t have been so quick, if there wasn’t an acceleration from the United States,” said Jean, who basked in the early success in the front row alongside Italy-based U.S.-born designer Edward Buchanan and Afro Fashion Week Milano founder Michelle Ngonmo.

Meribe broke down in tears after the show as she thanked the fashion chamber and the movement’s founders for getting her to the runway.

Joy Meribe designer thegrio.com
Designer Joy Meribe acknowledges the applause at the end of her Spring Summer 2022 collection, unveiled during the Milan Fashion Week, in Milan, Italy, Wednesday, Sept. 22, 2021. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

The collection featured tiered and ruffled skirts and jackets with built-in capes that were both regal, as seen in an off-shoulder dress sweeping the ground, and hip, including a mini day-dresses and shoulder-baring tunic. Textiles were an explosion of bright yellow against sky blue, with tropic prints featuring thatched cottages against flourishing banana trees, which Meribe said was meant to celebrate a return to more normality.

“We have passed from a dark moment, and I wanted to create something full of hope and light, the joy of restarting,” she said backstage.

The initiative that launched Meribe opened its second edition this fashion week, an all-female group of designers working in Italy with roots in Togo, Morocco, Haiti, Cuba and India, following last year’s “Fab Five” inaugural class of all African-born designers.

“There is movement happening,” said Buchanan, the American designer behind the Sansovino 6 label. “Of course everything takes time, but it takes somehow an industry to get used to the idea that these are talents like any other.”

To point, they have created a database of more than 3,000 fashion professionals with diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds living in Italy, including designers, merchandisers, photographers and stylists, with the aim of putting to rest the notion that diverse talents weren’t available in Italy.

Joy Meribe - Runway - Milan Fashion Week - Spring / Summer 2021
Fashion designer Joy Meribe (L) acknowledges the applause of the audience at the Joy Meribe fashion show during the Milan Fashion Week – Spring / Summer 2021 on September 22, 2021 in Milan, Italy. (Photo by John Phillips/Getty Images)

But even while marking progress on diversity being made in the industry, organizers said that a racist incident at a four-star hotel in Milan aimed at this year’s “Fab Five” underlined the work still ahead.

Ngonmo said that she was checking into the hotel with the five women when the desk clerks rudely dismissed routine requests by paying guests, indicating that they didn’t belong there. She posted the incident on social media and later spoke with management, who apologized and fired the two workers responsible.

“They dehumanized us, taking away our humanity and treating us like animals. It is really, really bad,” Ngonmo said.

Jean said the incident “is the proof that everything we are doing today, more than ever, needs to be done. It is a necessity.”

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