This is Stella Novarino – an Italian-Haitian designer, who launched her eponymous label Stella Jean, in 2011.
So, we could begin with the natty Italian tailoring that collides regularly with Haitian art. Or we can get into the African-inspired prints. We see them mingling with extravagant embroidery of massive roosters and (what looks like) festively adorned donkeys. Perhaps we’ll start with the intricate details that fuse traditional craftsmanship. There are bits from Pakistan, Mali, Peru, sometimes Burkina Faso, but always Haiti. There are bourgeois silhouettes and skirts that float, and flow, and flounce with debbie enthusiasm.
Another angle could be Stella Jean’s confident mix-and-match aesthetic; a smorgasbord of sartorial fare, with floor-grazing silk dresses, bright prints, rough knits and tasseled collars. Plisse and peplums and pom-poms, oh my! With her glorious, ever-evolving collage of multi-ethnicity and Italian design, Stella Jean is a visual and textural delight.
We Love…
I love how her work tells a story of identity and integration, culture and costume, migration and metissage. Wrapped in layers of deft maximalism, and imbued with social conscience, every collection feels like a kaleidoscope of cultural identity. Wearable. Personal. Insistent.
Jean ditched her political science pursuits at the Sapienza University of Rome to model for Egon Von Furstenberg, then took the self-taught route to creating an ethically sound label that would challenge the look and feel of Italy’s fashion scene. She won the Vogue Italia talent competition (on her third try) and garnered the attention and support of Suzy Menkes and Giorgio Armani, who selected her Spring/Summer 2014 collection to show at his Teatro Armani show space in Milan. It was the perfect launchpad. The only black member of Italy’s influential Camera della Moda, Jean advocates tirelessly for more diversity in the Milan Fashion space.
She founded the sustainable development initiative Laboratorio delle Nazioni in 2020, became a UN Goodwill Ambassador, and was awarded Designer of the Year by Harlem Fashion Row in 2023. She also designed the Olympic uniform for the athletes of Haiti at the Paris Olympic Games in 2024. Her pieces have been seen on Beyonce, Angela Bassett, Regina Hall, Viola Davis, Julia Roberts, Grace Byers, Logan Browning and Storm Reid, to name a few, and can be found at Matches Fashion, The Corner, Moda Operandi, Farfetch, United Arrows, and Alara Lagos.