London (AFP)

At just 29 years old, Grace Wales Bonner is one of the most promising London designers, exploring in her eponymous brand the black male identity with looks that have caught the eye of celebrities like Meghan Markle.

With her fall / winter 2020 collection presented Sunday evening in London as part of Men's Fashion Week, this daughter of a Jamaican and an Englishwoman paid tribute to her origins, exploring the generation of British Britons from the Caribbean living in London. in the 1970s.

"I was interested in how young people and people embrace British traditions but also build their identities and ties to the Caribbean. It was also an exploration of multiculturalism in the UK at that time," said the AFP stylist.

Called Lover's Rock, the name of a romantic reggae style born in the British capital at that time, the collection is inspired by a report by photographer John Goto on the British Afro-Caribbean community gravitating around a community center in Lewisham, in south-east London. It also draws on the personal history of the designer.

"It was sort of an inevitable collection for me. It's like coming home," said Grace Wales Bonner, who grew up between Stockwell and Dulwich in south London.

The cuts are reminiscent of the Savile Row, a prestigious street of London tailors synonymous with English chic, from the 1960s.

Caribbean symbols like these golden buttons on a twill pea coat are displayed with pride.

The interbreeding is also housed in caps in the colors of Jamaica handmade in Shetland wool, so British.

Grace Wales Bonner explains that she had fun "hustling a little" with "very traditional, very recognizable" materials.

The designer also reinterpreted the works of Frank Bowling, British abstract painter born in Guyana to whom the London museum of Tate Modern devoted a retrospective last summer.

The colorful Swan I and II paintings become prints on silk shirts, the swan symbolizing the irrepressible desire for freedom.

Supported by an impressive sound system, the parade evokes a family or neighborhood celebration, the public, among which young and old members of the Caribbean community taking places around round tables sipping a hibiscus drink.

- Meghan's white dress -

Barely graduated from the prestigious London school Central Saint Martins, in 2014, Grace Wales Bonner stood out and her graduation collection, called "Africa", won the L'Oréal Professionnal Talent Awards.

His first Fall-Winter 2015 collection, "Ebonics", is critically acclaimed.

In 2015, she received the prize for best young talent in men's collections at the Fashion awards, awards for British fashion.

The following year, a jury of big names in fashion, including Karl Lagerfeld, Marc Jacobs and Nicolas Ghesquière awarded him the 2016 LVMH prize for young designers, a welcome boost to develop their brand.

The young Englishwoman had presented to the jury a collection evoking the coronation in 1930 of the Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie, with clothes adorned with embroidery, or with crochet details.

Another welcome publicity stunt: last May, Prince Harry's wife, Meghan Markle, chose one of her creations, a sleeveless white trench-style dress, to present their newborn baby, Archie, under the lenses of the photographers.

"This clearly brought more visibility," testified the stylist to AFP, welcoming the generous gesture of the Duchess of Sussex.

"I think it's great how she uses her popularity to support other people, other women. She has been very intelligent and her intentions seem very generous and sincere."

Passionate about questions of identity and representations, drawing her ideas from art, literature, music or the history of black culture, Grace Wales Bonner said that she had found in fashion "the easiest and more direct for me to communicate. "

Admiring Phoebe Philo and Coco Chanel, she explains "always looking for a very beautiful, refined vision of masculinity".

© 2020 AFP