Michelle Ngonmo fights for inclusion. Her weapon is fashion; her battleground is the catwalks and showrooms of multicultural Milan.

“We are in a society where everything is imagined and imaged as all white,” says Ms. Ngonmo, sitting in a white suit in an office where the corners are reserved for clothes racks loaded with the outfits for Afro Fashion Week. “And there is a real struggle between the people-of-color Italians and [white] Italian society. Asian Italians, Black Italians are really struggling to be accepted as Italians.”

That’s one of the reasons why in 2015 she created the Afro Fashion Association, with a base in Italy and Cameroon. The organization represents 1,400 designers in Africa or the African diaspora.