Grace Wales Bonner took over the Guggenheim for a wild stylish guardian

“I want to be able to celebrate with people,” said Grace Wales Bonner. “Sometimes I have the feeling of making a fashion show, it is a fairly small group of people who can experience it. And I want to open up and allow people to interact with intentionality.” On Saturday evening, the fashion designer based in London was in the Auditorium of the Guggenheim, where she organized “Toginness”, the second edition of a traveling concert with a series of artists, whose sounds with its vision of elegant afroatlantic menswear swing.

Wales Bonner’s wish to expand the world of her brand is not theoretical: In contrast to an exclusive Runway show or any number of fashion parties that arose before the MET GALA, the relationship was accessible to the public. Tickets for the event performances by the South African Acapella Group The Joy, Mode World Favorite DJ and producer ACYDE, LAGOS Highlife Band the Cavemen, American-Ghanian R & B Superstar Amaarae and Skater rapper Sage Elsesser, Alken Navy Blue Quickly.

The designer has a lot to celebrate. A decade after its foundation, Wales Bonner is one of the most culturally influential men’s brand in fashion. Under the direction of Wales Bonner’s self -confident spirit of cooperation in music, art and sports clothing (your Adidas collection remains a massively successful touchstone for contemporary style), the luxury label is firmly on a flowering creative community that inspires Wales Bonner and which in turn is inspired by it.

The influence of her work is evident in this year’s Metropolitan Museum of Art Exhibition “Superfine: Tailing Black Style”, which includes several looks from Wales Bonn. “I’m looking forward to Monday!” Said Wales Bonner, who will appear in the MET GALA, where she will also attract a number of A-list participants, a process that she described as “very enriching”.

But at first she was looking forward to her own bash to get started. Music, she said, “sizes a lot of what I do.” Co -linked together in Paris for the first time in June in June. “For me it is really, very, very exciting because it was something that had been in my head for a long time,” she said of the concept that she had as a way to present her favorite artists (some, many not) in unorthodox locations. “I am very happy about people who break the limits of what they do or have many different influences that can be felt in music.”

Shortly after 8 p.m., the rotunda filled up when the guests meandered up the spiral ramp to take on “Rashid Johnson: a poem for Deep Denker”, the epic overview of the Chicago artist, painting, sculpture and performance. Wales Bonn himself is a multidisciplinary thinker – she and Johnson have stayed in touch since the designers started his work on a show that she curated for the Serpentine Gallery in London. “Being in this incredible work of art is really a special moment,” she said. “Togetherness is also about seeing artists in different contexts, so it was really aligned.”