The 102nd edition of the Florence Menswear Show will be held in Florence, Italy from June 14 to June 17, 2022, with guest designer Grace Wales Bonner at the Palazzo Medici Riccardi brought her eponymous label's Spring/Summer 2023 collection to the show. The show explores the history of black people in the city in a timeless way, telling viewers the stories behind the series.

Wales Bonner Fall/Winter 2023 Collection

Since founding the brand in 2014, Grace has presented a fusion of European, African and Atlantic styles in her designs with her unique perspective of mixed race. Because of her unique design, Grace Wales Bonner won the 2015 British Fashion Awards New Menswear Designer Award, the 2016 LVMH Young Designer Award, the 2021 CFDA International Menswear Designer of the Year Award and many other international awards. .

The organizers of the Florence Menswear show spent more than two years discussing with Grace before finalizing her plans to show at the 102nd edition of the Florence Menswear Show. In more than two years of discussion and planning, Grace has continued to make further discoveries. For example, Benozzo Gozzoli's fresco in the palace's Magi Chapel depicts a black archer. And Cosimo de' Medici's emphasis in Parliament on the different cultures that Moors, Berbers and Africans brought to Italy. "I wanted to recognize these things and let more people know about them, so I started thinking about how to embody these in clothing," Grace said.

Wales Bonner Fall/Winter 2023 Collection

The Medici Riccardi Palace is a classic Renaissance building, with the walls of its splendid central courtyard covered with hundreds of sacks that once held cocoa beans, each roughly hand-stitched together by a Ghanaian Artist Ibrahim Mahama created it exclusively for the show. Grey, worn sacks hide delicate, splendid walls, and the central courtyard, out of place with the entire palace, is the perfect backdrop for the show. Grace said: "I was trying to present the history of black people in Florence, and it was important for me to be involved in the history, to acknowledge the very complex presence of the black heritage. So I intervene physically in the building to maintain a balance within the space."

At the beginning of the season's designs, Grace began to focus on Alessandro de Medici, Duke of Florence, who spent most of his life in the palace. As a hereditary ruler, he is said to have been born of African-American servants working in the Medici family, and as such, he is considered the first black head of state in modern Western Europe. From this, Grace began to stitch together her fragmented memories of black people living in Italy during the Renaissance, Africa now, books she had read, etc., to create the Welsh Bonner Spring/Summer 2023 collection.

Wales Bonner Fall/Winter 2023 Collection

The show started with a T-shirt featuring the work of American artist Kerry James Marshall, whom Grace believed could be a master painter of the era, and recently collaborated with him on a limited edition Clothing capsule. Then, the exquisite painting style combined with the court feeling of the Renaissance period, running through the show. Models wearing the latest designs seem to be figures in the court of that era, renaissance-style flared collars decorated with metal rivets, gorgeous retro silk jacquard coats, and London's Savile Row (commonly known as: Tailors Street), a series of cashmere tuxedos, camel hair coats, etc. Intricate craftsmanship is used throughout the collection, from Indian lace and hand-dyed fabrics made in Burkina Faso to Baroque pearls, crystals and recycled glass beads from Ghana, all subtly placed on the garments. Although a variety of handicraft techniques are used, under Grace's design, each piece of clothing has its own style and harmony.

Wales Bonner Fall/Winter 2023 Collection

The designers also provided each visitor to the show with a booklet that referred to an ancient Ghanaian totem called the sankofa, a bird with its head back and feet forward. As one of the most classic cultural symbols of Ghana, it means not forgetting the past and moving towards the future. The brochure reads Grace's interpretation of this: "Adorned with the splendor of the past, pointing to a new path, flying forward eclectically."

This philosophy defines each of Wales Bonner’s collections, which are always adorned with the past, but not overshadowed by past splendor. Just like in the Medici Riccardi Palace, it takes people back to the Renaissance, but it is very realistic and brings us contemporary thinking.

Article Source:艺术与设计

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