London Designer Merging Culture in British Fashion

British-Jamaican designer Grace Wales Bonner, a graduate of the 2014 class of Central St. Martins, continues to win acclaim for her collections built upon a thesis of the global visual and intellectual experience of Black culture without foregoing a respect for Savile Row tailoring, and just enough streetwear influences to push her brand of cultural luxury into the greater global fashion conversation.

Upon graduating in 2014, her thesis collection “Afrique” won the L’Oreal Professonal Talent Award. A year later she debuted at the London menswear collections under her namesake label Wales Bonner. The collection titled “Ebonics” won the British Fashion Award for Emerging Menswear Designer. In 2016 she won the LVMH Young Designer Prize. Soon after, she would add womenswear to her collections. A sneaker collaboration with Adidas followed in 2020. The accolades continued. In 2023, she was the invited guest designer at spring edition of Pitti Uomo. Like many up and coming young designers in WWD’s lens during the timeline inclusive of Virgil Abloh, her collaborations have not been limited to fashion. The designer has also partnered with Dior and artist Kerry James Marshall. In 2023, she was tapped to curate an exhibition with the Museum of Modern Art in New York for its “Artist Choice” series, firmly establishing her as a designer to watch.