Since the start of her career, Grace Wales Bonner, 29, has explored her Anglo-Caribbean heritage through the prism of clothing.
Its fall-winter 2021, presented in video, is no exception.
It is the latest installment in a trilogy that first looked at the British Lovers Rock scene of the 1970s, born out of the passion for reggae and soul of the second generation of Jamaicans in London, (a tribute to her father's wardrobe), then on the Kingston of the 1980s. This season, in a video shot between Jamaica and the English capital, she was interested in the aesthetic codes of the Caribbean students and intellectuals who came to study in England.
"
I had in mind this uprooting, this double identity, these young people who study in Europe while remembering their native land.
Personally, it is in this in-between that I found my place to be creative, and I try to breathe a different cultural perspective into European luxury,
”explains the Briton.
The suit is here offered in WALES BONNER denim
By mixing current and archival images, over which is recited a poem by the 1992 Nobel Prize for Literature Derek Walcott, taken from
The Gulf
(1969)
, a
work dealing precisely with the question of uprooting and identity, Grace Wales Bonner blurs the lines between past and present.
“
I am interested in this idea of timelessness.
I want to design clothes that are difficult to place in history, that could be created in the 1970s like today.
»No wonder, therefore, that his slightly nostalgic locker room does not give in to the temptation to offer the perfect teleworker paraphernalia.
Its collection gives pride of place to tailor art, and not just any: the costumes are made in collaboration with the honorable house of Savile Row Anderson & Sheppard, who dressed Fred Astaire, Cary Grant and now Prince Charles.
An association launched more than a year ago and which has allowed the designer to work in contact with house tailors.
“
I like their approach, which combines supreme elegance with flexibility and ease that matches what I want to do.
The Savile Row tradition provides a structure and a setting in which to experiment and have fun.
"
Anderson & Sheppard's tailoring expertise serves the more relaxed attitude of the Wales Bonner locker room WALES BONNER
The wardrobe offered by Wales Bonner is in tune with the times: over the course of her collections, she has always shown how pieces from the tailor-made production could be associated with sportswear pieces (recently, her collaboration with Adidas was all the rage) .
This season, it offers soft, supple, comfortable to wear materials.
The traditional fabrics of the English shirt are washed to be softened, the cashmere is associated with cotton for more lightness, then printed.
“
I want to offer a new way of seeing the traditional pieces of the male wardrobe.
For me, the costume is always relevant.
I am optimistic: people will, after this period, want to dress.
Beauty is more important than ever.
"
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