Hermès Shakes Things Up With New Menswear Designer
Luxury group says Grace Wales Bonner has developed a contemporary and innovative approach to menswear over the last 10 years
Hermes appointed Grace Wales Bonner as its new creative director of men’s ready-to-wear collections amid a wider creative reshuffle in the luxury industry.
Her appointment at the French company makes her the only Black woman to lead design for a major European luxury house. The Birkin bag maker said Tuesday that Wales Bonner, 35, will present her debut show in January 2027. “Her take on contemporary fashion, craft and culture will contribute to shaping Hermès men’s RMS 1.44%increase; green up pointing triangle style,” the brand’s general artistic director Pierre-Alexis Dumas said in a press release.
After graduating from London’s prestigious Central Saint Martins fashion school, she founded her line, Wales Bonner, in 2014. There, Wales Bonner racked up awards and plaudits for an approach to menswear that braids British tailoring and sportswear with Black history and art-world flair.
In a bid to win back shoppers amid shrinking demand for luxuries, a number of high-end fashion houses including Dior, Chanel and Gucci have reshuffled their creative teams and appointed new leaders. Wales Bonner’s name was often floated by industry observers as a possible candidate for a top job. Almost all of them were filled by male designers.
Earlier this year, Wales Bonner dressed a number of attendees, including F1 driver Lewis Hamilton, at the 2025 Met Gala celebrating the exhibit “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style.” In recent years, she curated exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and London’s Serpentine Galleries. “Grace’s appetite and curiosity for artistic practice strongly resonate with Hermès’ creative mindset and approach,” Dumas said.
Her clothes, while high-minded, are deeply wearable. Staples of her collections include track jackets and retro-inspired knitwear. Since 2020, she has worked with Adidas on collections of clothing and footwear. Her takes on the Samba sneaker—with touches like studs, animal print and visible stitching—helped turn the classic silhouette into a lusted-after trendsetter. This year, the sneaker resale site StockX said the shoes have sold at a 25% premium over their retail price. This fall, she dipped into classic American surf gear in a partnership with Stüssy. Hermès declined to say whether Wales Bonner will continue producing her own line.
In a landscape dominated by conglomerates, Hermès remains family-controlled and has found enormous success by staying true to its roots as a saddle-making house. Changeover in the design ranks is rare: Nadège Vanhée, the brand’s artistic director of women’s ready-to-wear, has held the job since 2014. Wales Bonner’s predecessor, Véronique Nichanian, started working at Hermes in 1988.
“A dream of mine would be to work with a tailoring brand, as that is at the core of what I am doing,” Wales Bonner told System magazine in a 2019 interview. Asked to pick one, she said, “Maybe a brand like Hermès.”