Mirabella Imbaccari is a town in the southeast of Sicily, home to 5,000 people. It began hosting asylum-seeking women in government camps, mainly from Nigeria. Half of Italy’s migrants currently reside in the island’s temporary centres, increasingly met with hostility from locals amid growing economic and political insecurity. “When you have a crisis like this and you don’t have a state that helps you to handle it, you are left abandoned,” Di Gregorio says. 

In 2015 Di Gregorio asked the women to create a look that captured their varying emotions about becoming a refugee, using the traditions of African hairstyling. The women were asked to name their hair designs and explain the reasons behind the styling.

Between portrait photography and reportage,  Di Gregorio mixed the language of fashion photography with social life and real-people experience.