Grace Wales Bonner, Fashion Designer
For millennia, many artists, writers, poets and musicians have invoked the muses to inspire them in their work. From Homer to Shakespeare to Chaucer.
Many have been inspired by an individual whom they refer to as their muse. We’re no different, here’s a closer look at an individual who’s creativity & use of heritage and history inspires us.
Wales Booner | Archive | Fashion East
Grace Wales Bonner, a London-based designer. Creative Director, Wales Bonner — an evocative menswear label upending the hypermasculine norms, influenced by a deeper personal and ancestral dimension which spans literary influences, spiritual practise and anthropological exploration of her Afro - Caribbean and British Heritage.
Here are two things that this creative muse inspires us by.
Drawing on representation a force for good..
Grace is one of five siblings born in South London to a white English mother and a Jamaican father. In numerous interviews Wales Bonner says she ‘’was always looking for reflections of myself or reflections of my family’’. As a brand we love that she embodies representation.
Her brand was formed ‘’ in reaction to the lack of representation within fashion’’. She says ‘’ I’m connected to a lineage and history where there are many examples of very elegant, sophisticated characters that were part of historic narrative that weren’t being included’’
Ph | Wales Bonner | Black Sunlight Collection
Drawing on her roots in a society that has a strong tradition of story-telling and oral renditions of the past,
Looking at Wales Bonner work, it’s easy to see that she’s drawn to Black thinkers and creators.
She’s inspired by the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and a range of intellectuals and her muses have included Malik Amber, the African slave - turned - king of India.
The abolitionist Ethiopian leader Haile Selassie I, the Brooklyn visual artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, the Chicago-based painter Kerry James Marshall, and the Harlem writer Langston Hughes.
As a brand we are inspired by this idea and influence of cultural identity, where a persons’s identity or their self conception and self perception is closely related to their ethnicity, social class and generation.
It’s an inspiration to see a global luxury brand that’s coming from a black cultural perspective push the boundaries in fashion, whilst simultaneously not having the black perspective being the main focus of attention. Her work speaks for itself, addressing the politics of identity and race through projects that balance multinationalism with a sense of personal subjectivity".
Her designs are characterised by a blend of sportswear and tailoring and her interest in making everyday clothes, such as the tracksuit, more elegant.