North American indigenous designs are coming to Milan Fashion Week.

Kicking off a three-year partnership with the trade show White Milano, the nonprofit Indigenous Fashion Arts organization from Toronto will bring seven designers to Italy from Feb. 24 to 27 with the goal of increasing their global visibility.

The designers include Lesley Hampton, a Temagami First Nation designer who is also a curve model with B&M Model Management, and is known for her size-inclusive activewear, tulle and pleated eveningwear; Evan Ducharme, a Metis artist with ancestral ties to the Cree, Ojibwe and Saulteaux peoples, who designs tailoring and separates with a “heightened utilitarianism,” and Section 35 streetwear designer Justin Louis of the Samson Cree Nation, who recently collaborated with Foot Locker Canada on a collection modeled by Amber Midthunder.

The other guest designers are Dorothy Grant, a 30-year fashion industry veteran who incorporates Haida art into her work; Iroquois beadwork designer Niio Perkins; “Dene futurism”-inspired designer Robyn McCloud, and Erica Donovan, who makes jewelry inspired by the land and her Inuvialuit culture.

The trade partnership with White Milano was brokered by the Canadian Embassy in Italy and the group of designers curated by Indigenous Fashion Arts, which held its fist fashion festival in Toronto in 2018 and is setting…