Grace Wales Bonner: British designer becomes creative director at Hermes

Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and moreStay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Birkin bag maker Hermes has named Grace Wales Bonner as its menswear creative director, replacing veteran who spent nearly four decades at the brand.Wales Bonner, 35, who will show her first collection for the brand in January 2027, is part of a new generation taking the creative reins of some of the biggest names in fashion, including Chanel, LVMH-owned Dior and Kering’s Gucci.The industry has been shaking up design teams in an effort to pull out of a two-year slump, prompting a round of musical chairs, with the latest season of fashion shows featuring a record number of design debuts.Hermes has generally been an outlier when it comes to designer reshuffles, keeping creative directors like Nichanian, 71, and jewellery and footwear designer Pierre Hardy, 69, in their jobs for decades.Grace Wales Bonner has been named as menswear creative director at Hermes (Getty)Wales Bonner, whose name circulated as speculation swirled around top fashion jobs in recent months, is a Central Saint Martins graduate who has won a number of menswear design awards.Bonner’s appointment follows new creative director Matthieu Blazy launching his first collection for Chanel at Paris Fashion Week.The 40-year-old creative head comes to the role from the Italian fashion house, Bottega Veneta, where he was creative director from 2021-24. Succeeding Virginie Viard, a long-time Chanel employee who took over from Karl Lagerfeld after his death in 2019, Blazy is a totally fresh face for the heritage French fashion house.Under Karl Lagerfeld in the 1980s, Chanel became the model for how a heritage house can be both historic and relentlessly modern, its runway spectacles influencing the industry far beyond Paris. That legacy made Blazy’s debut more than a change of designer, but a test of how a century-old institution continues to speak to the world.In Paris, Blazy opened the season’s most anticipated debut beneath colossal celestial bodies — Saturn with its rings, a full solar system suspended above a jet-black and a mirror-bright runway — staking a claim for theatre from the first second.Reflections doubled the cosmos underfoot as a front-row constellation of stars, including Nicole Kidman, Marion Cotillard and Tilda Swinton, looked up. By night’s end, the room rose in a standing ovation. “It was such a surprise… It’s exciting to be here for a new era,” filmmaker Sofia Coppola told the Associated Press. “There are things you recognise from the house codes, and a fresh new look at it.”



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