Prêt-à-Porter, Ethnical Fashion by Stella Jean

Stella Jean

The style of Stella Jean reflects and evokes her mixed and creole heritage. A blend of old continent cultures with the verve of contemporary fashion marrying the opposites in femininity well aware of its precious uniqueness. Through the lines of Italian haute couture craftsmanship beats a sensual elegance, proud and aware but never ostentatious.

The designer’s signature “Wax & Stripes Philosophy” reflects a mood reminiscent of her own multicultural personal journey, translated into a stylistic point of balance, a synthesis of cultures that overcomes what seems to be diametrically opposed. “Wax” represents her maternal roots, Haiti, the first independent black republic in the world, drawing its history in part from West Africa.

The masculine “Stripes” present on shirts, symbolise her father, from Turin. The “Wax & Stripes Philosophy” thus professes and projects the culture of encounter: the two cultures never negotiate their individual membership, instead mixing in response to the needs of the times. Fashion can be used as a cultural translator and a tool against colonisation: re-establish the balance between symbols, stories and different worlds through style.

A succession of cultural: “trompe l’oeil” with the desire to branch into even more unexpected stylistic weddings, allowing cultural exchanges and dialogues to finally be equal.

The stylish mixture never strays into caricature or parody, remembering that knowledge and respect should never be subordinate to latitude, but instead must be “a priority“.

Together with ITC (of UNCTAD) and ALTA Roma, Stella Jean supports an Ethnical Fashion Initiative that aims at providing technical assistance and better coordination of basic production structures of some micro communities in the sub-Saharan region of Africa so that they can get better recognition of their products in the International Fashion System.