Art has always seemed to have this ability to transport you to familiar and sometimes personal places. Grace Wales Bonner has done exactly that for me with her latest S/S22 collection titled “Volta Jazz” a season centered around the silhouettes and style of 1970s West Africa. 

Bonner has often used the African Diaspora as a starting point in the creation of her collections creating luxurious takes on everyday African clothing without straying too far from what makes African clothing unique. Wales Bonner’s latest collection boasts vibrant colors, staples like dress shirts, casual suits, and soccer-adjacent athletic wear (shown through her label’s continuous collaboration with Adidas) and woven dresses, and high-waisted sashes and skirts. Bonner continues to draw on the modest ideas of everyday dress in West Africa and Africa as a whole.

Being from West Africa (specifically Ghana), this collection immediately reminded me of the clothes worn by my father and other family members in the pictures I have seen of him in his youth in the 70’s. The clothes also remind me of the clothes worn by everyday people today in West Africa. Bonner encapsulates modern West African garb through silhouettes designed to escape the heat of the West African sun as well as the muggy humidity of the rainy season through looser-fitting clothes that don’t suffocate the body and allow it to breathe. Her continued commitment to telling the story of Africa through art and clothing is beyond admirable.

Check out the short video and remaining looks from Wales Bonner S/S22 below!