acts of grace

In her presentations, Grace Wales Bonner builds worlds: never wholly relying on aesthetic resonance, instead creating full-bodied sensory landscapes. The designer is as much a curator as she is an artist—threading together personal and collective histories with collaborations across art, performance, and literature. Recently, she took the role of curator literally with Spirit Movers, an exhibition at MoMA consisting of 40 works across mediums that reflect and inspire ritual, devotion, and collective experience. Grace joins stylist Karen Binns to reflect on growing up mixed-race in South West London and how its multicultural atmosphere inspires her creatively.

You invited me to a show at the Serpentine Gallery. At some point, these gospel singers started hollering and I was like, Where am I? She’s taking it to God in the Serpentine Gallery? Afterward, you served beef patties. It was genius. The most interesting thing about it was that it wasn’t limited to clothes or an aesthetic—you brought a spice of culture into everyone’s headspace.

That was a nice memory. [The audience] probably thought I was just going to do a fashion show. But with that kind of opportunity and in that context, there was more to express. My work comes from a broader cultural perspective, so I think I was reeling from inspiration from the world and the archive that my work is connected to. Some of these ideas can be felt through different mediums like installation, exhibitions, sonic experiences. That exhibition, A Time for New Dreams, explored spirituality, the form of a shrine, and this kind of assemblage—how intentional gathering can create a portal into other places. The gospel singing was a portal.

You’ve been in the game for a good 10 years. What was your first womenswear collection?

I started to show womenswear around 2019. For me, to start with that frame of menswear was quite important—just to have that formality.

I like having a structure to disrupt; I need to know what rules to break down. I do think of myself as quite institutional. I’m not an outsider.

It’s not about shouting from another position. It’s about trying to understand as much as possible and learn and appreciate value systems or heritages within design, but also bring something else into it.

Do you feel that you’ve always been reflective of two different cultures equally?
My mom’s English and my dad’s British-Jamaican. My parents separated when I was around 10 so two very formative backgrounds raised me. I think I’m also quite curious, and growing up in South West London, in the kinds of schools I went to, there was a huge mix of cultures. There’ve been times in my life when I wasn’t super aware of race. When I was younger, it was only when I went to another school that people [began] telling me what I was and what I had to be like because I’m Black.

[Eventually, I understood], You don’t have to be any type of way.
I think that expansiveness of Blackness was something I came to appreciate because there were phases in my life where things were reduced to how I should be. My early work was very much about the myriad of ways you can be. You can be very elegant, very sophisticated. It’s all present in history and around us. Within fashion at that time, I didn’t feel that was really represented.

Growing up, were you a tomboy?

A little bit. But I also had quite an expressive side.

Really? At your shows you’re so subdued.

I’m very comfortable being in the background—orchestrating or collaborating with people, not necessarily wanting the attention
on myself. But there is something that is quite expressive about me.
I like beautiful things and I think that’s really what started the brand. It was about revealing beauty and shining light on it.
There’s also a more decadent or precious side that exists within womenswear, which I’m starting to express. But then there will always be this duality and formality. I’m always working within those two brains.
If I were to ask you three words that express the “Wales Bonner Girl,” what would they be?

Soulful, intentional, expressive.

I see music as a big part of your shows. If you thought of two songs that could represent what this girl would listen to, what would they be?

There’s a song called “Two Sisters” by Shakti. It has John McLaughlin playing Indian classical guitar. There’s just this incredible, insane melody that’s hard to listen to. And probably Bob Marley’s “Waiting in Vain.”

I wanted to talk about your collab with Adidas. It’s a brilliant achievement, because you could have lost your brand identity. But instead, it shows that your brand can lift another brand.

I was interested in working with a sports brand. I spoke with Adidas and I felt like there was a good synergy there. I saw a lot in Adidas’s archive, in the way that it’s been picked up in different cultural spaces. I’m really inspired by how style emerges on the street; it’s not about the functionality of a football shoe—it’s the person who wears it and creates a whole genre of style.

And again, like I said, I do like a framework. I like some rules. I work best when I’m reacting. The framework, that history, was just the connection. To work in a different category was really interesting to me—on footwear [and sportswear], which I love. It was kind of like a tailoring. That craft and beauty—I wanted to bring that romanticism to what I was going to do.

What was the most challenging collection or idea that really took you through it? Where you thought, I can’t do it, this is just too difficult. And then it worked and it was amazing.

My favorite collection [Ezekiel] came together in a very pure and honest way. That was my first standalone fashion show and my first show with NEWGEN. I was thinking about Haile Selassie and about what he meant for people in Jamaica. So it was kind of a cross-cultural story. It was very pure and there was no hiding because it was minimal and hands-on. It came together in the most incredible way. I worked with a lot of young Jamaican models, where it was their first time modeling and coming over from Jamaica. It was amusing and incredible to see because the people in the show were like princes. That’s how I saw them, so they took it on very strongly. It was beautiful and affirming.

Early on in your career, was there someone who inspired you to create?
I’m going back generations with what I’m channeling in terms of ideas of beauty, strength, and vision. My mum was very supportive of my creativity and expression. And my dad was a very sophisticated, elegant, cultured, artistic Black man. So I had that model already in my family. I was just reflecting what I saw: the elegance and the grace that I had but didn’t see in the fashion landscape.

It’s good for younger people to hear, as you are from a mixed-race background, that your English mother was just as supportive.

For me, it’s something I’ve realized later in life. Initially, I thought I was so connected to my dad because, culturally, I’m very close to him. But when I look back, my mum’s the one who’s been there for my creativity and expressiveness, really helping me start the brand. But with everything like that, it’s not obvious.