By Omari Foote
Models glided along a patterned cream floor in jeans loosely tucked into boots with Howard sweaters layered over long button-up shorts.
British Jamaican fashion designer Grace Wales Bonner debuted her highly anticipated Paris Autumn Winter 2024 collection.
Bonner described the show as “an imaginative encounter with the Howard University experience, a celebration of a shining lineage” in the opening paragraph of the show’s notes.
“This is a space that nurtures Black thought, and it retains Black thought,” said Moorland archivist John Kennedy. “So it’s not by coincidence that an artist can come here and be inspired.”
Bonner is the designer and owner of her company, a luxury menswear fashion label based in London.
Last year, publications from GQ to Harper’s Bazaar talked about her Adidas collaboration, which included a metallic pair of Adidas Sambas currently being resold for seven times their original price.
‘Dream Study’ models sported a new Adidas collaboration with crocodile-textured Adidas Superstars and Timberland boots.
Models glided along a patterned cream floor in jeans loosely tucked into boots with Howard sweaters layered over long button-up shorts.
Bonner said the show, ‘Dream Study,’ was inspired by a trip to Howard University’s Moorland-Spingarn Research Center.
“I was looking at a lot of the Howard University’s Yearbooks, looking at style around the 90s and 2000s,” said Wales Bonner in a video recorded by iD Magazine. “People connecting to hip-hop styles and culture.”
This is not the first time Howard University’s culture has been woven into the pop culture thread.
In the 90s sitcom Living Single, the character Khadijah is a Howard graduate who sports Howard paraphernalia on the show.
Additionally, Jordan Peele’s horror film Us, in 2019, starred Winston Duke, who wore a Howard sweatshirt for most of the film.
In response, TV Guide published an article, “Hey Hollywood, There Are Other Black Colleges Besides Howard.”
“There is no black pop culture, or pop culture, without Howard University,” said Howard visual culture professor Dr. Elka Stevens. “Howard is one of the most influential universities in the world.”
Howard alumna and fashion journalist Kynadi Hyde expressed complex feelings about Howard’s representation in pop culture.
“It opens up kind of a gray area of who is allowed to represent Howard University if they are not already aligned with the community,” Hyde said.
On the other hand, Moorland-Spingarn Research Center Manuscripts Division intern Brooklyn King said it was “mad cool” to see that Wales Bonner’s show was inspired by a space King has spent a lot of days in.
“I always tell HU students that Moorland has so much to offer in so many ways, and Wales Bonner is a great example of what that can look like,” said King. “It feels dope that others have made these connections, but we must do the same.”
