A day before an emerging Ghanaian designer made his Milan runway debut, Michelle Francine Ngonmo was troubleshooting how to squeeze more people into the venue to meet demand. Hours before the show, she was up before dawn with her team, setting up backstage and the showroom.
Ngonmo, a 38-year-old Cameroonian-Italian, has dedicated her professional life to helping raise the profile of Africans and other people of color in Italian fashion and other creative fields “because there was, let’s say, a lack of representation of people like me.’’
Ngonmo, who founded the Afrofashion Association a decade ago, produces runway shows, mentors talent and recognizes trailblazing achievements through the Black Carpet Awards, launched in 2023. Ngonmo also teaches fashion students and travels regularly to Africa to work with designers there.
That number is both a sign of the Afrofashion Association’s success, and a measure of how much more work there is to
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