BIANCA SAUNDERS
After graduating from Royal College of Art in 2017, Bianca Saunders made her London Fashion Week Men’s debut in 2018, making her mark as a designer with a gender-bending aesthetic.
As a woman designer in menswear, Bianca Saunders has had to train her gaze to have an empathetic approach to her design. By listening to the men around her and observing their relationship with clothes, she challenges the classic codes of men’s fashion to unveil the vulnerability that lies underneath.
Adding twists to traditional garments, Bianca Saunders’ clothing offers reworked staples with elements normally associated with womenswear, like ruffled tops, side-split trousers, and satin textures. Bianca Saunders wants to challenge the hypermasculinity that surrounds the representation of black men by showing that men can be masculine and still embrace elements of femininity.
In her SS21 collection “The Ideal Man”, Bianca Saunders fuses elements from ballroom culture with the artworks of Hans Eijkelboom to bring a sense of freedom to the classic masculine wardrobe. For Autumn-Winter 2021, she continues to expand on the topic of fluidity with nods to Surrealist art movements. The “Superimposed” collection featured a collaboration with Wrangler focused on upcycled pieces.
Bianca Saunders stands out thanks to her approach to streetwear-informed fashion and her ability to combine classic British tailoring and womenswear to inspire fearless self-expression. This year, the brand was shortlisted in the pool of talent for the 2021 LVMH prize and Bianca Saunders continues to redefine masculinity and represent hybrid identities, drawing from her British and West Indian background.
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