In a 2019 System magazine interview, Grace Wales Bonner praised menswear designer Raf Simons for being "very uncompromising," describing it as "a really beautiful thing to see in this era."
The quality dear to Wales Bonner is also prized at Hermes, the 188-year-old French luxury house famed for its rigorous and meticulous ways that this week appointed her its new creative director of men's ready-to-wear collections, making her the only Black woman to lead design at a major European luxury house.
The appointment gives the maker of Birkin bags a 35-year-old designer known for her unique way of melding fine tailoring with broad cultural research, with a string of awards under her belt.
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