Meet the designers who brought colourful diversity to Milan's fashion runways

This picture shows (from left to right) Mokodu Fall, Fabiola Manirakiza and Joy Meribe. Along with two other designers, they opened the recent Milan Fashion Week. Photo composite: AFP

Born in different parts of Africa but all operating under the Made In Italy brand, the five designers who opened Milan Fashion Week as part of a collective, come from diverse backgrounds.

Fabiola Manirakiza, 50, was born in Burundi but it was in Zaire, which became the Democratic Republic Of Congo, that she learned how to sew, in a school run by Italian nuns.