Wednesday’s most important show was by Wales Bonner, an ode to matinee idol nighttime style blended with a sense of summery bliss, and a symbol of cultural empowerment.
Designer Grace Wales Bonner has built aesthetic on celebrating the cultural richness of the black diaspora – from the Africa to the Caribbean – and this show was the latest to underline what a rich cultural vein that is.
For next summer, she trumpeted Port of Spain textile artist Althea McNish, whose tropical prints were the key decoration in this collection. Curiously, of the three key prints – some with imperial roman purple and others moss green – the key print was just in black and white, a perfectly judged abstract floral. She entitled the show and the key print, ‘Midnight Palms’, which sums up Wales Bonner’s greatest skill – her smart self-editing.
Her ability to cut quite classic clothes – a Humphrey Bogart white tuxedo, or a Harry Belafonte blazer worn with open shirt – but each given their own subtle twist. Like displaced buttons; or one button made in crystal; or a waistline finished in grosgrain.
Her styling was also pretty perfect – a soft ecru Henley with a Hollywood black-tie tux; a beefy leather jacket paired with swimming togs.
Backed up by a great dub soundtrack courtesy of James William Blades, and Senegalese musicians Obree Daman and Ibou Calabasse, this was a first-rate fashion statement.
A decade ago, black creatives quite rightly lamented their lack of access to positions of power in fashion, especially in France. But the arrival of Virgil Abloh and now Pharrell Williams at Vuitton shows that the gates are now open. However, at the insidious risk of typecasting designers by color, one has to say their greatest champion is Grace Wales Bonner.
Her show today inside a wing of the world’s most famous museum, the Louvre, felt like an important statement. That’s because it was. The celebration of her many black diaspora cultures, allied to Savile Row tailoring; first rate fabrics; and athletic sports giants was really empowering.
Doubly so, less than two weeks before French voters decide whether to elect in to power a far right party, Rassemblement Nationale, whose signature policy is proposing national preference. A policy that would effectively create two classes of citizens, with the rights of French people of black and Arab origin downgraded compared to white people. Let there be no mistake about that.
That’s why, without mentioning a word of politics, this Wales Bonner show will almost certainly be the show of the Paris season.
Per aspera ad astra.
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