Black designers to know

By Rebecca Gonsalves on 5/10/2020

Fashion has a race problem: the historic lack of diversity behind the scenes at every level has led to the release of racially insensitive products, cultural appropriation, profiling of minority customers in stores and a lack of representation on catwalks, magazine covers and ad campaigns.
In the last few years model diversity has improved somewhat, but until people of colour are welcomed into (and allowed to flourish in) creative and executive roles at every level of fashion brands, retailers and suppliers, mistakes will continue to be made and the opportunity for new ideas and voices will be lost.
Supporting Black designers is just one way to make retailers take notice and change their ways, permanently.
Culture Whisper is your curated guide to the best of London. Commission for items purchased through retailer links in this article will be donated to Black Lives Matter.
Main image: © Thebe Magugu

Kemi Telford

'One size fits most' is perhaps the best way to describe the glorious skirts and dresses from indie brand Kemi Telford designed by Nigerian-born Londoner Yvonne Telford which are cut from the vibrantly patterned non-stretch fabrics. There are also slogan T-shirts and bags, costume jewellery and limited edition pieces for the home.

Rather than tracking the latest fashion, this is style that speaks for itself, all made with ethics and sustainability in mind.

We love: Limited-edition Eyitayo blue free dress, £200 - buy here

Wales Bonner

Grace Wales Bonner has been making serious waves in the fashion industry since she first rose to prominence in 2014, when she received the L’Oréal Professional Talent Award for her Central Saint Martins graduate show.

Since then she's been awarded the prestigious LVMH Young Designer grand prize, collaborated with Dior, hosted a solo exhibition at the Serpentine Sackler Gallery and dressed the Duchess of Sussex.

There's a tenderness to Wales Bonner collections, with an aesthetic that treads a fine line between masculine and feminine and explores a rich tapestry of Afro-Atlantic and European cultural references.

We love:Wales Bonner Palms smocked-neck cotton-poplin blouse, £395 - buy here

Christopher John Rogers

Christopher John Rogers' star is in the ascendant. The Louisiana-born, New York-based designer has been named as one to watch by British Vogue and Net-a-Porter's buying director Elizabeth von der Goltz while his designs are favoured by Michelle Obama, Lizzo and Tracee Ellis Ross.

In 2019, Rogers was awarded the top prize at the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund just two months after his debut runway show, while von der Goltz has praised his 'statement, couture-like clothing… the craftsmanship, the silhouettes, the volume – [Christopher] has been daring and has taken risks.'

'I say this a lot,' Rogers told British Vogue of his bright, voluminous designs. 'But for me, it’s about truly taking up space, not feeling like you have to shrink yourself down.' A powerful statement indeed.

We love: Christopher John Rogers neon asymmetric pleated poplin skirt, £1,191.41 – buy here

Pyer Moss

Pyer Moss (pronounced 'Pierre') founder Kerby Jean-Raymond grew up in Brooklyn, the son of Haitian immigrants, and has been engaging with the fashion industry since his teenage years, interning at 14, starting a label at 15. Now in his 30s, Jean-Raymond has been at the helm of Pyer Moss since 2013, naming it for his mother. After a long-standing collaborative relationship with Reebok, Jean-Raymond was announced as the vice president of creative direction for the sportswear behemoth in late September 2020.

Jean-Raymond's collections are profoundly personal, not only inspired by his family but also the way that he alone sees the world. In March he shared the advice he gives to struggling young designers with T Magazine, The New York Times. 'Your personal story – your sadness and confusion and losses and victories – is your superpower, the one thing that can’t be taken from you.'

Collections are built around sportswear and tailoring and laced with subversion.

We love: Reebok by Pyer Moss grey collection lounge pants, £130 - buy here

Bianca Saunders

Menswear designer Bianca Saunders draws on her experience of growing up in London with West-Indian heritage and explores masculinity and the black male identity through her highly praised collections that bring a feminine influence in a new way.

An alumnus of the Royal College of Art, Saunders has presented her collections in London and Florence, where she showed her Personal Politics collection for autumn/winter 2018 at Pitti Uomo.

We love: Bianca Saunders bleached denim jacket, £505 - buy here

Cushnie

Clean lines and luxurious fabrics are signatures of the sophisticated womenswear label Cushnie, helmed by Carly Cushnie. A minimalist approach and tailoring techniques underpin the collections which hug, cling and skim the female form in order to provide poise and confidence.

'As a woman, I understand what my customer wants from her clothes. I’ve grown and evolved alongside her over the past 10 years, and I strive to present her with timeless silhouettes that make her feel sexy, sophisticated and powerful – all at once,' says Cushnie, who now acts as CEO and creative director of the New York-based label.

And it's an approach that is evidently working with celebrity fans of the brand including Beyoncé, Ashley Graham, Lupita Nyong'o and Padma Lakshmi.

We love: Cushnie sand wrap-effect silk charmeuse bodysuit, £905 - buy here

A Cold Wall*

Samuel Ross does things differently. The founder of A Cold Wall* has built the critically and commercially successful brand on two seemingly diametrically opposed ideas: working-class uniforms and the tailoring of Savile Row.

A graphic design graduate and former employee of Virgil Abloh and Kanye West, Ross has an all-encompassing approach when it comes to his label, using fashion pop-ups, presentations and in-store installations as an opportunity to build on a vital dialogue with the public.

He told Another Magazine: 'I realised how important it is to remember that you’ve been elected by the people that buy your products, to tell a specific story. That’s our job. And it is a job. It probably links back to my background in product design – understanding that being a designer is actually a job of servitude. You have your client, and you are there to service them. There’s much more of a Gaussian blur around that in fashion, but the consumers are my clients.'

Aesthetically A Cold Wall* collections run with an elevated urban aesthetic, incorporating technical fabrications and graphic logos into designs that push boundaries.

We love: A-Cold-Wall* logo-debossed leather chelsea boots, £535 - buy here

Martine Rose

As the south London-raised daughter of a nurse and a Black Panther-turned-accountant, Martine Rose knows better than most the multitudes of London life. It's these perspectives – and an introduction to style through music – that have shaped the subculture-influenced label that she founded in 2007.

Rose has become known for her off the beaten track approach to fashion show staging (past collections have been shown on a residential road in Kentish Town, a climbing centre in Tottenham and Seven Sisters market) as well as for shaping the greater fashion aesthetic with her prophetic, often political collections, which have led to a design consultancy role on menswear at Balenciaga.

‘Style is really important in a Jamaican family,’ she told ES Magazine in 2019. ‘People would always make all sorts of assumptions about you anyway, so the message was: don’t give them the opportunity to. Always put your best foot forward. It wasn’t what you bought, it wasn’t how much money you had, it was about your personal style.’

We love: Martine Rose logo-print cotton-jersey sweater, £190 - buy here

Off-White

As the artistic director of Louis Vuitton menswear, Virgil Abloh is one of the most important people in luxury fashion. But it's his own label, Off-White, established in 2012, which has been named 'the hottest fashion brand in the world'. Ironic or not (for Off-White Abloh favours an ironic approach to design that is immediately communicated by his signature use of slogans and quote marks), that accolade isn't far off.

Before he founded Off-White (and its predecessor Pyrex Vision) Abloh was creative director of Kanye West's creative agency DONDA, although when I interviewed him in 2014 he wouldn't discuss that side of his career.

A prolific collaborator, Abloh has a long list of high-profile fans and collaborators including artists Jenny Holzer and Takashi Murakami – although his list of detractors is hardly short. Whether you love or hate Abloh's work at Off-White, it's impossible to ignore.

We love: Off-White ankle-high hiking boots, £695 - buy here

Thebe Magugu

When Thebe Magugu came to London in 2019 as part of the Brave New Worlds fashion exhibition at Somerset House, it was clear that he was a talented and driven individual.

The young South African focused his collection presentation on his country's democratic Constitution, specifically the rights it confers on female citizens.

That sense of freedom comes through in his designs for women too, winning him the LVMH prize later that year, the first African designer to take the honour. Magugu made his Paris Fashion Week debut in February 2020 and continues to gain momentum with his collections which are made in South Africa.

We love: Thebe Magugu crepe shirt dress, £696 - buy here

Fenty

From fronting Balmain campaigns in 2013 to sitting front row at countless catwalk shows, Rihanna has been dabbling in the fashion industry for years. But her involvement has taken a more committed turn of late.

Adding to her long-standing collaboration with Puma, the singer/actress/philanthropist launched her size-inclusive lingerie label Savage x Fenty in 2018, following it up in 2019 with the launch of Fenty, t he fashion label she founded with LVMH, making history in the process. In December she took home the prize for 'Urban Luxe' at the British Fashion Awards, a particularly fitting descriptor for the Paris-based label.

We love: Fenty Meshy mules 105, £400 – buy here