Give Grace Wales Bonner everything. When the British-Jamaican designer was rumored to be in consideration for a bevy of high-profile creative director gigs, it begged the question: Why is a designer so talented and so universally loved not getting pinched for a high-profile job when so many of her peers are?

Finally, the designer gets her due. Grace Wales Bonner is the creative director of Hermès Men's ready-to-wear. Even better, she'll be taking her time

“It is a dream realized to embark on this new chapter,” said Bonner in a statement. And she means it.

In 2019, when interviewed by renowned art curator Hans Ulrich Obrist, Bonner acknowledged that she was open to working as the creative director of a big house. But she had some specific requirements.

“A house with heritage is interesting to me, because I am interested in a framework and then disrupting elements of classicism within that,” she said at the time.

And when pushed for a specific name, Hermès was the first that came to Bonner's mind. 

The designer launched her eponymous house over a decade ago, in 2014, fresh out of the influential London art school Central Saint Martins.

And while the general population will know her eponymous brand best for its brilliant adidas collaborations that almost single-handedly propelled the Samba sneaker to virality, Savile Row-level tailoring is Bonner's core practice.

Bonner has a longstanding partnership with Anderson and Shepard, a historic British tailor that operates on Savile Row, the famous street where London's bespoke suits have been made for centuries. This consciousness of craft parleys into everything Bonner does: Even when recently collaborating with streetwear giant Stüssy for a surf-inspired collection, Bonner introduced fine Loro Piana doeskin wool for a range of double-breasted blazers. 

But Bonner is no mere suitmaker. She subverts dinner jackets and '70s-style flared jeans with crops and studs, patchworking textiles as often as she inverts gendered norms of dress.

Expect to see similar thoughtful, wearable contrasts brought to Hermès, perhaps the pinnacle of traditional French luxury fashion, where previous creative director Véronique Nichanian created subdued and stylish collections for nearly 40 years. Though Nichanian's collections were quality, they were also quiet — Hermès is quiet, to be sure, but these were not collections that broke beyond the house's core clientele. Bonner offers an opportunity to go far beyond.

Every Wales Bonner collection is not only informed by the designer's British-Jamaican heritage, but by the greater Black diaspora: seasonal references range from Abebe Bikila, the Ethiopian Olympian who won a marathon barefoot, to the suave American author James Baldwin, giving greater depth to otherwise grounded garments.

This worldly thoughtfulness is what makes Grace Wales Bonner's work feel so vital and, inevitably, will do the same for Hermès.

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