Grace Wales Bonner: A bold new chapter at Hermès menswear

The announcement that Grace Wales Bonner has been appointed Creative Director of menswear at Hermès is not merely another succession in luxury fashion. It is more of a signal. It tells us something about how Hermès sees the future of men’s style, and how it still chooses to operate slightly off the beaten path.

Wales Bonner is far from a “safe” hire, precisely what makes her appointment so fitting for Hermès. To summarise her trajectory:

• A Central Saint Martins graduate (London), Wales Bonner launched her eponymous label in 2014.
• Early on she drew attention for taking on themes of Black masculinity, heritage and cultural hybridity, British and Caribbean identity weaving into tailoring and menswear.
• She won the LVMH Prize for Young Fashion Designers in 2016, and has since been identified by The Business of Fashion as “one of the most promising newcomers in the world of fashion.”
• Critics place her work at the intersection of craft, culture and sub-text. As one headline in GQ put it: “Grace Wales Bonner’s Vision of Black Elegance Is the Hottest Thing in Menswear.”
• Her design language is both conscious and commercial: wearable clothes informed by scholarship, art, heritage.

In short, Wales Bonner arrives not only with creative credibility but with an ideological and cultural depth. For a house so rooted in craftsmanship and tradition, this signals a desire to bridge refinement with the layered realities of modern culture.

Hermès’s modus operandi: talent seen but not obvious

Hermès has never been about following fashion’s loudest signals. Its creative director choices, and the way they evolve style, have consistently shown that the house prefers “slightly left of centre” rather than the predictable.

In womenswear, Hermès appointed Martin Margiela in 1997, a deconstructionist Belgian designer whose avant-garde rigour seemed, at first, an unlikely fit for the house’s quiet luxury. He was succeeded by Jean Paul Gaultier from 2003 to 2010, whose irreverent wit brought a sense of play to the brand, followed by Christophe Lemaire, who led from 2010 to 2014 with his restrained, architectural clarity. Through each transition, Hermès has consistently resisted the “safe” hire of a headline-driven star, favouring instead designers whose sensibilities align with its craft-driven DNA, often from the most unexpected directions.

This new appointment of Wales Bonner continues that trajectory: she is not the obvious “luxury menswear superstar” but someone whose sensibility brings nuance, cultural depth and intellectual texture. For a brand like Hermès, this is exactly the kind of appointment that aligns with its legacy of craftsmanship, heritage, and quiet avant-garde.

Why now matters

The timing is significant. With Véronique Nichanian stepping down after 37 years at the helm of Hermès menswear (she joined in 1988). Her final collection will appear in January 2026., That gives Wales Bonner roughly six months to research, absorb, and craft her own vision before her first full-show debut.

In a luxury landscape under pressure, where many houses react with quick changes of creative director, splashy announcements, headline-seeking hires (yes we're looking at you, Gucci!) Hermès is quietly shifting the guard but maintaining its pace and vision. That, in itself, is noteworthy.

What her appointment suggests for Hermès menswear

We can expect a menswear line that continues Hermès’s craftsmanship, material richness and refinement, but filtered through a more overt cultural sensibility. Wales Bonner’s dual British-Caribbean idiom may introduce new narrative layers without losing the Hermès ethos of “quiet luxury.

Her independent brand experience means she is used to operating with autonomy. That bodes well for continuing Hermès’s method of letting design flourish rather than coaching it for mass hype. The six-month runway gives her a runway (figuratively and literally) to prepare, rather than being rushed into a debut, suggesting Hermès is giving her time to shape something considered and distinctive.

Some modest caution notes

With any high-profile appointment there is risk: how seamlessly can a brand so steeped in tradition shift into a new tone without jarring its longstanding clientele? Wales Bonner will, in effect, inherit an era of menswear defined by Nichanian’s quietism and craft-driven vision, so the challenge is to evolve without fracturing the identity.

Hermès’s choice of Grace Wales Bonner is, in many ways, emblematic of what the house stands for: deep craftsmanship, heritage credibility, and a willingness to let time and taste do their work rather than chasing the obvious.

Wales Bonner becomes a first: the first Black woman to helm a French luxury house’s menswear division. That is not only a milestone for her personally, but for the industry at large. And while milestones are easy to mention, what matters is what she will do with that space.

If the past two decades have taught us anything about Hermès, it is that the house does not gamble on flash, it invests in vision. With Wales Bonner, it is opening up its menswear story to new narratives, voices and textures, and in so doing, it may well map the path ahead for luxury menswear.