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land, and “the port as a site of exchange and transgression”- but rather than falling into camp nautical territory or JeanGenet fetishism, heavy silken suits came with nipped waistsand low-slung trousers; colourful shirting was printed withhand-painted reproductions of Jacob Lawrence’s 1940smigration series; sleeveless military jacketswere rendered in silk serge wool. Althoughonly one female look appeared on therunway, it was so remarkable that, on itsarrival, half the audience’s women sat upstraighter in their seats: an ivory two-piece with wide-leg trousers, its perfectlyformed blazer cut with a 1940s bent. That is the spirit of this new progressioninto womenswear: exceptional elegancesteeped in intellectualism. Plus, putsimply, “there’s something to do with thepsychology of wearing men’s clothing,”Wales Bonner reflects. “It makes you feelprotected in some way, but also sensualand powerful.” These are clothes that capture thatfeeling – and such a refined backstoryonly makes them more appealing. QI make has a feminine sensibility, and when you put that backinto a womenswear context, it takes on a masculine quality.”Navigating such boundaries is perhaps what best definesWales Bonner as a brand. Her graduate collection wasaccompanied by a dissertation on black rhythmicality, whichexplored how musicians such as Miles Davis and artists suchas Kerry James Marshall used African tradition to disruptconventional European frameworks. “I think that researchwas very important to my way of thinking and my approachto design,” she explains. “I don’t see myself as an outsider, or‘anti’ anything – instead it’s about disrupting from within.”Accordingly, her womenswear takes masculine tailoring asits starting point, and pushes against its rigid constructs:waists are gently cinched, shoulders slightly narrowed.It is this sort of subversion that interests Wales Bonner.While she takes inspiration from historic narratives (thetransitional biography of Ethiopian slave and military leaderMalik Ambar; the stately wardrobe of Haile Selassie) hersis not an explicitly rendered vision of the diaspora or colonialpolitics. Instead, she embraces its nuances. Think Europeantailoring married with Caribbean craft; thick double satinswith ceremonial connotations; strips of crochet in Rastafariancolours. Her autumn/winter collection, inspired by “the notionof créolité”, centred on the idea of a black sailor returning to