British designers look to Caribbean in their shows at Paris fashion week

With her razor-sharp tailoring and highbrow references, Grace Wales Bonner is a high-fashion favourite. But her eponymous London-based label has now scored wider attention, thanks to her collaborations with Adidas. The recent Samba boom can be traced back to a silver version of the shoe she designed. And she was also responsible for the popular kits worn by Jamaica’s female footballers at the 2023 World Cup.

Her show in Paris on Wednesday evening provided further examples of how she is able to please both connoisseurs and customers. Designs included a take on the classic mac, satin suiting, and knitwear subtly flecked with colour, worn with red swimming trunks. But there was also a tracksuit with shorts, and some new trainers – including a Superstar – that are bound to spark excitement online.

Prints by Althea McNish were used on some pieces. The artist and designer, who arrived in London from Trinidad in the 50s, worked on fabrics for companies such as Heals, and her Golden Harvest textile was a bestseller. Transposed to Wales Bonner’s very modern clothing, the sketchy vibrant designs gave a mid-century charm.

Wales Bonner, who has Jamaican heritage, found McNish inspiring as someone who had popularised a perspective that was not typically part of the mainstream. “She brought what she described as her ‘tropical eye’, or Caribbean sensibility, to depicting Trinidadian flora and fauna, but also British landscapes,” Wales Bonner said. “[She is someone] who brings their heritage and does something that disseminates and is very influential.”

Bianca Saunders is another British designer in Paris who has looked to the Caribbean. For her show, she approached Jamaica, where her family are from, from the perspective of a tourist. Titled the Hotel, her collection was partly inspired by the work of the photojournalist Bradley Smith and his 1956 book Escape to the West Indies: A Guidebook to the Islands of the Caribbean.

This translated into some smart tailoring nodding to resort butlers, and stringed bags and tunics referencing fishers. But there were also clothes that signalled relaxation: satin loungewear, beachy short shorts and easy evening sequins.

There were fun takes on practical pieces – such as a long plastic mac for rainy days, and printed reusable shopping bags – and Saunders’ interpretation of that holiday classic, the tourist T-shirt. One read, “Who God Bless No Man Curse”, while another featured a recipe for a happy home.

Saunders explained that Smith’s photographs had provided a filter. “I was thinking about what it would have been like going to Jamaica in the 40s, but also using the modernism of my identity,” she said.

The T-shirt slogans “come from things that you would find in Jamaican households … it’s a Christian country and they use sayings [such as ‘Who God Bless No Man Curse’] to live by,” she said.

Knee-high boots, worn with wide-legged shorts and relaxed shirting, were a strong silhouette across a few outfits, and came from observations from past trips to Jamaica. “Even though it’s the Caribbean, people do wear winter clothes … The boots are quite Yardie culture,” Saunders said.

Saunders won the BFC/GQ Designer Fashion Fund this month, a £100,000 prize. She follows in Wales Bonner’s footsteps: the latter won the award in 2023, suggesting that recognition and support for British designers of colour, in London and Paris, may finally be taking root in fashion.