What is most amazing about designers is their ingenuity in finding inspiration in any element of everyday life. Such is the case with Anglo-Jamaican designer Bianca Saunders, winner of the ANDAM 2021 fashion award, who returns to Paris for the second time, with a collection inspired by Hard Food, a staple of Jamaican cuisine.
“It’s starchy foods like yams, bananas, and plantains which start out completely hard and then become soft when they’re boiled down. So I used that as a concept: the contrasting textures that are hard in some places and soft in others,” she said.
Staged in a minimalist setting, installed in the cultural center 3537, rue des Francs-Bourgeois in Paris, the collection showed familiar silhouettes of the designer, with very clever cuts and confections. From pants with a stiff bonded wool front, between being decoration and functionality, to a luxurious white suit with raw edge sleeves, passing by knitwear with an asymmetrical collar, a “suit” jacket that the designer calls “a sweater”, curved and twisted denims or layered, reversible long-sleeved twinsets, with split hems… Everything exuded refinement and smart tailoring, without ever losing the brand’s innate trendy aesthetic.
As for the palette, pigments in soft tones like bronze, cream and yellow replicated the hue of yams and bananas, juxtaposed with bold, electric green, orange and red that mimicked plantains, pumpkins and carrots – elements often found in Hard Food.