GR ACE WALES BONNER
This bright British talent creates clothes that redefine ideas of ethnicity and gender.
It’s rare to write about menswear in Bazaar, but Grace Wales Bonner’s embellished, tailored creations blur the distinction between male and female clothing. The 25-year-old Central Saint Martins graduate has been producing collections for just two years, but has already been named the best Emerging Menswear Designer at the 2015 British Fashion Awards and carried off this year’s prestigious LVMH Prize.
‘I’ve always been interested in identity and how you can represent yourself,’ she says, when she arrives at the photoshoot in Dennis Severs’ House, a domestic time capsule in Spitalfields, not far from the east-London studio where Wales Bonner now lives and works. In person, the designer is slight, with luminous skin, dressed in layers of black and a pair of Gucci loafers, a delicate cross-shaped tattoo inked upon her middle finger. She’s serious and rather academic – the model of professionalism – and you immediately sense the steely determination that lies at the root of her success.
Her designs explore ideas of representation and she draws upon her mixed-race background (her mother is British, her father Jamaican) to create pieces that are an elegant hybrid of traditional African clothing and British tailoring. Wales Bonner almost always chooses black male models for her shows, sending them down the catwalk in attire such as soft-pink wide-leg trousers and crystal necklaces. And although she subverts ideas of what constitutes menswear, her remarkable collections exude power and dignity.
Perhaps this is due to the extensive research that underpins each new show. Her S/S 17 collection, for example, was inspired by the music of Chevalier de Saint-Georges, an influential Caribbean composer, and by the ceremonial clothes of Haile Selassie, the former Ethiopian emperor. Her ideas and muses often segue from one season to the next, as she explores and elaborates upon her themes.
‘My collections are always quite small and concentrated,’ she says. ‘Everything is handmade, so it takes a lot of time to produce. I’m more interested in creating special pieces rather than volume – my work is seasonless in a way, as each item relates to what has gone before.’
Although Wales Bonner works to the menswear calendar, she is encountering an increasing demand from women who want to wear her designs. ‘Sometimes I feel that women understand it more. The whole idea of what I do is that it’s open to interpretation. It appeals to different people – I have quite a mixed range of clients.’ She has started resizing her collections to suit her female customers, and is developing a permanent womenswear collection. ‘It’s easy for me to know what looks flattering on a woman. Easier, in some ways.’
On the rail behind her is a black jacket from a catwalk show that’s been made to female proportions. It took five days to sew, thanks to the woven collar, crystals and cowrie shells – once used as currency in parts of Africa – that adorn the front. It’s so exquisite that it’s impossible to imagine a person who wouldn’t covet it, whatever their gender.