Runway and model photos from the Stella Jean collection at the Miami Fashion Week taken by Fashion Photographer James Santiago.

Stella Jean is an Italian-Haitian designer born and currently living in Rome, Italy with a multicultural background in art, fashion and beauty. Stella began her career as a model for Egon Von Fürstenberg and discovered her creative calling for fashion designing. Her fashion line, Stella Jean, has a distinctive style indicative of her own personal story which she calls “Wax & Stripes Philosophy”. Her designs are a union between waxed textiles, Fifties chic, men’s shirt fabric and an impeccable European cut which exposes a transversal and groundbreaking creativity that poses no limits to cultural, social and fabric mixes. In September 2012 she debuted her collections during Milan’s Fashion Week and a year later was chosen by Giorgio Armani to show her collection in the spaces of the Armani Theater during Milan Fashion Week again, achieving the appreciation of both national and international press and critics, and reinforcing her role as representative of the Italian creativity’s new wave. In an effort to protect her origins, Stella is collaborating with the International Trade Center in the Ethical Fashion Initiative which is all about creating beautiful luxury handwork produced 100% ethically by disadvantaged communities in Africa. This ITC program generates work by creating an infrastructure where the fashion luxury business can develop and produce products. It is about a proper, accountable business which is sustainable and environmentally sound, promoting sustainable economic development and opportunities in countries that need our charity.