African fashion in range impressing Italians, at first (8)
I believe the answer is:
nigerian
'african' is the definition.
(Nigerian is an example)
'fashion in range impressing italians at first' is the wordplay.
'fashion' indicates anagramming the letters.
'impressing' is an insertion indicator (impress historically meant to conscript).
'at first' says to take the initial letters.
The first letter of 'italians' is 'i'.
'in'+'range'='inrange'
'inrange' with letters rearranged gives 'nigeran'.
'nigeran' placed around 'i' is 'NIGERIAN'.
(Other definitions for nigerian that I've seen before include "In gear in an odd African way" , "Native of republic in West Africa" , "One from Lagos" , "Eg, native of Abuja" , "Native of Lagos" .)