Grace Wales Bonner has built a fashion practice that extends beyond clothing. Since founding her London-based label in 2014, she has connected collections with research into Black cultural histories, music and art, while moving between independent design and international institutions. Her career has included the LVMH Young Designer Prize, exhibitions at the Serpentine Gallery and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and a 2025 appointment to lead menswear at Hermès.

South London and the beginnings of a label

Wales Bonner was born in South London in 1990 to a White English mother and a Black Jamaican father. After her parents separated, she grew up between her mother’s home in Dulwich and her father’s in Stockwell. She attended Graveney School in Tooting before studying at Central Saint Martins in London.

Her education brought research and design together. In 2013 she spent time in New York assisting Vogue fashion editor Camilla Nickerson. She graduated from Central Saint Martins in 2014 with the BA collection Afrique, which won the L’Oréal Professionnel Talent Award. That year she founded Wales Bonner, a London-based label that initially specialised in menswear.

The label’s debut collection, Ebonics, was presented at Fashion East in London in 2015. Its title referred to African American Vernacular English, bringing language and identity into a fashion setting. The collection established an approach in which clothes are shaped by cultural research as well as by the techniques of design. In 2016, she presented two runway shows, Malik and Spirituals, and received the LVMH Young Designer Prize.

Fashion in conversation with art and music

Wales Bonner continued to show her collections in London before being invited as guest designer at Pitti Uomo in Florence for the label’s Spring/Summer 2023 collection. From the Autumn/Winter 2023 season, her shows appeared on the Paris Fashion Week Men’s calendar. These changes in setting mark the widening reach of a label founded in London, while its work has continued to draw on broad cultural research.

In 2019, she curated A Time for New Dreams at the Serpentine Gallery in London. The exhibition explored resonances in Black cultural and aesthetic practices, using the shrine as a way of imagining other worlds and possibilities. It brought together music, fashion, art and design and attracted 25,000 visitors. Its title came from a collection of essays by Nigerian writer Ben Okri. The exhibition included works by artists such as David Hammons, Rotimi Fani-Kayode and Liz Johnson Artur, as well as footage of the African-American writer Ishmael Reed.

The exhibition was followed by Devotional Sound, a musical series that extended its interest in shared cultural practice. Performers at the London event included Sampha, Laraaji and Klein. A later programme at St Peter’s Church in New York included Solange, Standing on the Corner and Laraaji. In 2024, Wales Bonner presented Togetherness in Paris, with performers including E’tran de l’Aïr and Mansur Brown. A second event took place at the Guggenheim in New York alongside Rashid Johnson’s retrospective; its performers included Fireboy DML, Amaarae and The Cavemen.

In 2023, she curated Spirit Movers for the Museum of Modern Art in New York as part of its Artist’s Choice series. The exhibition brought together nearly 40 works exploring sound, movement, performance and style in the African diaspora and beyond. Its accompanying book, Dream in the Rhythm: Visions of Sound and Spirit in the MoMA Collection, combined photographs from the collection with poetry and new writing. The New York Times selected the exhibition as a Critic’s Pick.

Collaborations, awards and a new appointment

Wales Bonner’s collaborations have crossed fashion and visual art. She has worked with Adidas on seasonal collections and official kits for the Jamaican Football Federation. In 2019, she collaborated with Dior’s Maria Grazia Chiuri to reinterpret the house’s New Look silhouette for its Resort 2020 collection. Artists working with the label across collections and presentations have included Kerry James Marshall, Theaster Gates, Chris Ofili, Ibrahim Mahama and Lubaina Himid.

Her awards include Emerging Talent – Menswear at the 2015 British Fashion Awards, the LVMH Young Designer Prize in 2016 and the British Fashion Council/Vogue Designer Fashion Fund in 2019. In 2021 she received the CFDA International Men’s Designer of the Year award. She was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire for services to fashion in 2022, the year she was also named Best Independent British Brand at the Fashion Awards. Later recognition included the British Fashion Council/GQ Designer Fashion Fund in 2023 and British Menswear Designer of the Year in 2024.

Her work has also included a four-year research project at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna. In 2025 she was appointed creative director of Hermès menswear. Her first collection for the house is scheduled to be shown in January 2027. The appointment marks a further stage in a career that has carried a research-led London label into international fashion and cultural settings.

Why Grace Wales Bonner deserves a place in British Legacy

Wales Bonner’s place in British Legacy is grounded in the way she has connected a London-founded fashion label with sustained cultural research. After studying at Central Saint Martins, she established her own label and used collections such as Ebonics to bring questions of language and identity into fashion. Her work has reached beyond the runway: A Time for New Dreams at the Serpentine and Spirit Movers at MoMA brought art, music, performance and ideas about the African diaspora into exhibition spaces. These projects give specific form to the original article’s interest in identity and cultural exchange, rather than relying on general claims about influence.

Her achievements also show how a British designer’s work can move between independent practice, public institutions and international fashion. The LVMH prize, British Fashion Council awards and her MBE for services to fashion record recognition across distinct parts of the industry. Her Adidas collaborations, including kits for the Jamaican Football Federation, connect her design practice with sportswear and a Jamaican institution. The Hermès appointment extends that career into a major fashion house, while her first collection there remains forthcoming. Taken together, these achievements make her story relevant to British Legacy: it documents a designer who has made research and cultural exchange part of her work, and carried that approach from London into wider creative settings.

Sources

Grace Wales Bonner — Wikipedia, revision 1378174345

Adapted in part from Grace Wales Bonner by Wikipedia contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Text has been edited and combined with the existing article; this adapted text is shared under the same licence. Contributor history.