The Wales Bonner’s Spring/Summer 2022 collection came as a film and a series of photographs in collaboration with Joshua Woods.
This season, the London based designer brought us to a country in West Africa formerly known as Upper Volta.
She was inspired by the work of Burkinabé artist Sanlé Sory in the 1970s. In his famous Volta Photo studio in Bobo-Dioulasso, Sory captured in black and white young and sophisticated visitors, and when night fell, he immortalized the changing city’s nightlife reverberating with the free-spirited energy of the times, including Volta Jazz, an orchestral musical group that defined the Bobo Yéyé genre.
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The exuberance and optimism of this Burkinabè youth set the tone for the collection underlined by hand-woven traditional West African jacquard fabrics, and intricate embroidery. The silhouettes were relaxed, the fabrics were light and soft, the colors were contrasted, the textures were sensual, the patterns evoked summer, especially with its polyrhythmic stripes, its sunset gradients and its many geometric patterns, to suggest “a sense of escapism, and optimism, a holiday”.