Shows like ‘The Missing Thread’ just don’t come around. Curated by the Black Oriented Legacy Development Agency (BOLD) aka Harris Elliott, Jason Jules and Andrew Ibi, the Somerset House exhibition showcases the immeasurable and unsung influence Black talent has had on British fashion since the 1980s. Here, the successive generations who have been excluded from or misrepresented in mainstream narratives are finally given their flowers via a series of immersive installations that contextualise the cultures and concerns that have shaped them.

Guided by four thematic spaces – Home, Tailoring, Performance and Nightlife – we move through time and place, encountering garments as well film, photography, music and objects that speak to heritage and identity, resistance and innovation. The late, great Joe-Casely-Hayford OBE is honoured with a dedicated space that expresses his masterful ability to deliver meticulously crafted fashion that is as suave as it is meaningful. Other pioneers and their work include Bruce Oldfield’s designs for Princess Diana and Ozwald Boateng’s work at Givenchy. Bringing us into 2023 are new commissions from rising stars including Bianca Saunders, Nicholas Daley and Saul Nash. And in between, the likes of Art Comes First, Christine Checinska, Charlie Allen, Macphisto, Bayode Oduwole and many more prove that those missing, vital threads are woven into glorious and indelible technicolour.

For Nataal, creative polymath Kouadio Amany of Sons of Craft visited Harris Elliott in his London studio to capture the creative director’s own inimitable style and we sit down to discuss the co-curator’s vision for the show.

Which pieces were you most excited about acquiring?

The objects in the ‘Home’ section are the most precious to me, as they frame the start of the journey. I don't imagine visitors expect to see some of the artworks that are in 'Home' in a fashion exhibition. As examples, Dennis Wilson's ‘Jamaica Home’ and Faisal Abdu’Allah's portrait of Aquil of Scientists of Sound, from the series 'I Wanna Kill Sam Cos He Ain't My Motherfuckin’ Uncle' are resonant with me. I met Faisal and interviewed him for my dissertation while I was studying in the 1990s and this series has stayed with me all these years.

How have you approached the Joe Casely-Hayford curation?

From the outset, we as BOLD centred Joe Casely-Hayford as the arc for The Missing Thread. In the JHH rooms we’re paying respect to Joe's mastery and early works. For the atelier space, we looked at how he developed countless innovative shirt iterations by deconstructing and collaging together hundreds of white secondhand shirts to create a textured topographical wall relief, elevating the discarded shirts to an elegant finish. This process had an academic rigour as I worked with RCA alumni Joyce Addai-Davis and six students from CSM to create these intricate tactile walls.

Then in the show space, the idea for the backdrop was inspired by a JCH lookbook from the mid-1990s, which speaks to repurposing – a concept that we are only coming to grips with now. We worked with OG Studios and their idea was to treat the show space like a catwalk with the mannequins becoming the audience and the visitors to the exhibition walking on the catwalk. The curation of garments resonates with Joe's innate sense of his British self through a multiplicity of design references that are provocations on the status quo of design, material and concept. Joe had the ability to repurpose material from one use to another while elevating said material to a refined state that effuses elegance. He was uncompromising and unrepentant in his effortless disruption to design rules that always resulted in tactile finishes as part of covetable silhouettes.

Can you talk through each of the four themes and what they mean to you personally?

With ‘Entrance’ and ‘Home’, we’re looking at the Windrush generation as they entered Britain with a jubilant, colourful energy and enthusiasm to create new lives for themselves. As a child of that generation, I grew up experiencing racism from the far right at primary school, therefore my reflections on home were never going to be a warm, cosy place. The trompe l'oeil living room wall and fireplace is a reference to papering over many of my dreams and aspirations when I realised that there was an almost impenetrable glass ceiling to break.

’Tailoring’, between suiting and couture, was perceived as the holy grail in fashion. Faith and religion play a huge role in the Black community, so these spaces provide a form of catharsis for me. The concept was inspired by a bible verse I'd heard after speaking to one of the designers in the show and the furniture I designed after a visit to the Pinnault collection in Paris. This zone is looking up to Ozwald Boateng at Givenchy, Charlie Allen designing for England, Ninivah Khomo's couture and Bruce Oldfield's dress for Princess Diana alongside the other creatives who we celebrate in these two rooms. Among them are Art Comes First, Pokit, Jacqueline Raybun, Wayne Pinnock and Monisola Omotoso to name a few.

In ‘Performance’, I reference Sound System culture and have played with the concept of Black illumination. Combining the two artistic processes by illuminating photos set in speaker boxes is like creating an original visual dubplate to explore as a sound-design-style experience. Black people are always watched in society, which means our daily stylistic expressions become a form of performance. Whether you are Punk, Rasta or Roadman, each reflection is expressed in the Performance visual curation.

Finally, ‘Nightlife’ has a fiercely independent gloss and attitude with references around a nail bar and getting ready to go to a club with the Angela Phillips film 'Cuyah'. I believe it is essential to allow your audiences to feel immersed in the experiences you give them, so the tactility of sitting behind a counter where you get your nails done allows the visitor to take pride in being part of the story.

How positive are you about the current fashion landscape that the likes of Saul Nash and Bianca Saunders are breaking into now?

Designers like Bianca and Saul are treading a fine line of emergence meets navigation with their identities aligned to forging inspired narratives whilst developing new references. In the past five years I have seen the cultural media pendulum swing violently in opposite directions. In 2018 the idea of having open and informed discussions about race, culture and identity from a Black perspective were scarce and novel. Enter 2020 and those conversations became de riguer and seemingly the epiphany in media and academia to address an age-old problem of racism in the fashion industry and the inconsistent visibility of Black design talent. In 2022 I have heard about white mainstream fatigue. What was celebrated in 2020 now appears to be a punishment for many of those who were seemingly previously aligned and championing those conversations. I pray that young designers are able to hold their own, and not be solely dependent on an industry that still puts the monetary value on commodifying Black cultural references as opposed to telling authentic Black stories that ultimately benefit all.

In a nutshell, why is the show so important?

British fashion students over the past four decades have never been told that there are Black British artists and designers who have as much visual and technical integrity as their counterparts. We can't keep hiding the truth in plain sight, it's not good or fair and Britain is much richer as a result of this uncovered knowledge.

How does this show speak to ‘The Return of the Rudeboy’, the photography show you co-curated with Dean Chalkley at Somerset House in 2014?

I know I put undue pressure on myself to make sure that ‘The Missing Thread’ would sing its own song artistically and thematically. It was also essential to make sure I included elements of 'Rudeboy' as it is crucial that aspects for my work to be in a continual conversation. ‘The Missing Thread’ is the follow up album or chapter in my exhibition cannon.

What do you hope visitors to the space will take away?

I would love for people to absorb some of the elegance that has always been so important to us as artists and learn some facts about the Black British experience and continued contribution to design excellence. This is evident in our final spaces dedicated to Joe Casely-Hayford, two rooms that show the largest curation of his work in the UK.

Anything to add?

Go and visit ‘The Missing Thread’, the show opens doors that people never knew were closed.