Black designers have long been crucial to the history of UK fashion, with names such as Bruce Oldfield, Ozwald Boateng and Walé Adeyemi redefining British style over the past half century. While recent years have seen a new class of black British designers, including Grace Wales Bonner, Martine Rose and Bianca Saunders, become household names in fashion, there are still generations of artistic talents whose contributions have been left unacknowledged.
An exhibition at Somerset House titled The Missing Thread: Untold Stories of Black British Fashion, which opens this week, seeks to redress that by exploring the legacy of black diasporic designers and artisans from the 1970s through to the present day.
