MILAN — The Afro Fashion Association and Levi’s on Tuesday unveiled the 30 talents of diverse backgrounds enrolled for their inaugural “Voices of Denim” program.
The association, which has been supporting creatives in Italy belonging to underrepresented communities with an original focus on the African continent, and the denim giant first revealed their tie-up last February.
The yearlong partnership is to involve 30 Black, Indigenous and people of color creatives based in Italy across fashion design, photography, styling, sound design, art, writing and illustration, videography, and beauty to develop a collective project to reinterpret Levi’s heritage through their own cultural perspective and technical expertise.
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“Denim is a fabric that cuts across cultures, movements, and personal and social histories. It carries the marks of the people who live in it. It speaks to existence, expressive freedom, and the language of contemporary culture, a medium through which new perspectives and aesthetics can be told,” said Michelle Francine Ngonmo, founder and president of the Afro Fashion Association, during a press conference here Tuesday.
“Voices of Denim was not created to ask for space, but to make it. Narratives around talents from migrant backgrounds are too often framed around requesting inclusion. We want instead to create the space ourselves… The goal is to offer the city of Milan and the creative system new languages and new perspectives for cultural dialogue,” she said.
Following months of mentorship and training in their respective fields by Levi’s and Afro Fashion Association representatives, talents are asked to create their artifacts hinged on one of four thematic pillars. They include Unseen Threads, to explore memory; Blue Label, dedicated to the body and movement; Worn Resistance, tackling style as a form of self-determination, and Future Indigo, devoted to material experimentation.
The talents’ work — including garments crafted from denim deadstock supplied by the apparel company for fashion designers — will be showcased with an exhibition curated by Jordan Anderson to be inaugurated on Sept. 23 at the Casa degli Artisti in Milan during the city’s fashion week.
“Denim is never just denim. It is one of the few materials that moves through people’s everyday lives. It is present in social movements, in music, in subcultures… That is why it has become something larger than a fabric, a surface that absorbs time and tells us something about the people who have inhabited it,” Anderson explained.
“’Voices of Denim’ is a space for creatives to speak about themselves directly, in their own language, with their own sensibility and imagination. Denim is not treated as a fashion object, but as a cultural language,” he said.
With roots in a broad stretch of countries such as Nepal, Brazil, Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Congo, Sri Lanka, and Eritrea, among others, the 30 talents include fashion designers Victor Hart, Tokyo James, Nana Brenu, Gaeun Kim, Yaimira Gomez, Paul Roger Tanonkou, Luna Manjetsu, Papa Oyeyemi, Cristel Abboud, and Sabina D’Angelo; photographers Marzio Villa, Kendall Hill, Donald Ngamene, and Ben Drame; stylists Kamal Ijale, Maria Cassia F. Dos Santos, Thais Montessori Brandao, and Luciana and Adriana Toledo, known as Sorelle Toledo; sound designers Rover and Roger Rodriguez, and the duo known as Pamy & Polly; artists Francis Nathan Abiam, Red Longo, and Christopher Veggetti; writers Anna Osei and Nadeesha Uyangoda; illustrator Shannice Alogaga; video makers Emmanuel Blay and Sara Lemlem, as well as hair and makeup artists Celia Sears and Dinalva Barros.
Since it was established in 2015, the Afro Fashion Association has championed talents based in Italy with different backgrounds who are active in creative and entrepreneurial industries. In 2023 the organization held its first Black Carpet Awards event, celebrating leaders of change in fields including fashion, design, food, music, sport and cinema, among others.
The third edition of the event was held last September during Milan Fashion Week.