Wales Bonner

In my previous post on J.W. Anderson’s medieval-cool collection for men, I’ve mentioned Grace Wales Bonner as another example of a designer, who makes men’s London Fashion Week far, far more exciting. It isn’t a secret that London is Europe’s most celebrated melting pot of cultures, customs, dialects – no wonder why creatives from the whole world come here, to start their businesses. Wales Bonner‘s autumn-winter 2017 colllection is a continuation of her nearly poetic take on the topic of ‘spiritualism’.

“It was about the return of these spiritual characters who have existed in the Wales Bonner language before, it was about making them the heroes and looking at the street in an elevated way – and looking at it at different time periods. It was about bringing this sense of richness and depth to street language,” is the way she explained her latest outing of diverse boys (and girls).

Since the very beginnings of her own label, the Central Saint Martins graduate finds inspiration in her childhood memories – being a mixed-race girl brought up in south London was an experience, which left a significant mark on Bonner’s aesthetical point of view. The clothes presented by Grace clearly showed her interest in intriguing, African culture. Inspired with the unexplored street culture of Dakar, Wales Bonner sent out a line of leather patchwork pants, crinkled shirts with slouchy tailoring and velvet ties – as if the looks emerged out of Patrick Cariou’s photographs from his trip to Senegal.

Patrick Cariou

Tops covered in authentic Masai beading; stunning leather jackets trimmed with Dalmatian-intarsia mink – those are just some of the striking pieces coming straight from Wales Bonner runway. For the collection, the designer invited two, supremely-talented creatives, who are often associated with British fashion – first, Manolo Blahnik, who reinterpreted African sandals and boots. Second, Stephen Jones, who produced a limited number of Rasta caps with white mink stripes (Grace picked London’s Kingston neighborhood as a reference) and Pashtun caps. Bravo.

Photography Chloé Le Drezen

Grace Wales Bonner, 25, the London-based menswear designer, has been announced as LVMH Prize 2016 winner (along Vejas Kruszewski, who won the second prize), gaining the a major back-up for her eponymous brand. But in fact that’s just one of the reasons I’m writing about her today. The latter is her latest, break-through outing during London Fashion Week, which is pure poetry. When creating her label, Bonner’s main aim was to break the stereotype of black male fashion as aggressive, popularly seen in posture of hip-hop sweatpants and rapper’s gold chains. Wales Bonner’s work focuses on black male sexuality, unconventional masculine identity, and mainly afro-American cultural experience.

With a background of growing up in South East London and having a Jamaican dad, Grace looks forward to show the masses a new diversity in fashion, but from a totally different perspective – it’s much calmer, gentler, not as bold as in Stella Jean‘s way. This season, she was inspired particularly by Ethiopia’s emperor from the 30s, Haile Selassie, who was famous for blurring the African rituals with his own, military coronations and “style”. Tailoring, the season’s ultimate highlight, was embellished with crystals, all in traditional crotchet and meticulous embroidery. Her decorated, slightly dandy-ish men are accompanied by female models, who wear similarly androgynous pieces – gender fluidity is nothing new to us in London. But according to Wales Bonner’s vision, male beauty becomes something much more unexpected, yet highly signature. Her debut runway show was a bomb – and with LVMH’s funds, Grace will surely keep doing her thing.