Wales Bonner enchants Pitti Uomo with her culturally diverse fashion
Nicola Mira
On Tuesday evening, Wales Bonner
To unveil her menswear and womenswear collection for the Spring/Summer 2023, Wales Bonner chose one of the Medici’s most ancient palazzi, the Palazzo Medici Riccardi, built in 1444 by Cosimo de Medici, notably once the home of Alessandro de Medici, known as il Moro (the Moor) for his African origins, the Florentine republic’s first duke.
The palazzo’s courtyard and walls are covered entirely with burlap bags, of the kind habitually used to transport foodstuffs, especially from Africa. The bags were recovered and stitched together by Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama, creating an installation with migration as its theme.
“My influences aren’t drawn from fashion, but from the outside world. I delve into the past to look out to and project myself into the future,” said Wales Bonner, who called on artisans from all over the world to create the collection’s 36 looks, showcasing their unique skills. Experts in tie-dye techniques from Burkina Faso, embroiderers from India to make macramé dresses decorated with pearls, Savile Row
All of this blends together in a harmonious whole, the silhouettes both elegant and flowing, masculine and feminine, the style at once couture and sporty. Wales Bonner’s wardrobe is a well-balanced composition, featuring zebra and leopard-skin slippers worn with suits, and Adidas
Wales Bonner is equally adept at using a variety of codes, switching from contemporary style to eclectic chic, as with the double-breasted gilet-blazer or the hybrid khaki trench coat, its back enhanced with finely striped white cotton fabric, then adopting a sportier register only to segue with hand-crafted items and end on a rocker flourish, with electric blue suede jackets decorated with silver studs. Notable too are the maxi shirts in blue cotton with white bibs, looking almost like boubous, worn unbuttoned over ample, sarong-style double trousers layered over one another.
Wales Bonner, 31, born of a Jamaican father and an English mother, knows exactly what she wants. “I started with menswear, because it’s a more structured kind of fashion, and that also allowed me to break some rules. Nowadays, womenswear has the same weight as menswear in my collections,” said the designer, whose couture items are all made in Italy, and whose label is available at 85 top multibrand retailers worldwide, including Sacks, SsensePrintemps
Wales Bonner, who from the outset has put black identity at the heart of her fashion, caught the industry’s eye right after graduating from the prestigious Central Saint MartinsL’Oréal Professional Talent Award. Her first collection, ‘Ebonics’, for the Fall/Winter 2015, was highly praised by critics. In 2015, she received the Best Young Talent menswear collection prize at the British Fashion Council
The following year, she won the LVMH
