To say that Bianca Saunders has been busy of late would be a mammoth understatement. When we speak a few days before the unveiling of her SS21 collection The Ideal Man with a Daniel Sannwald-directed film, which premiered on the London Fashion Week website on 22 September, the 27-year-old is still settling into her east London studio at the Sarabande Foundation where she moved at the beginning of the month. The studio is part of Lee Alexander McQueen’s legacy, and provides scholarships to students and subsidised working spaces for new businesses. “There are other designers including Stefan Cooke and the brand Wed, as well as [jewellery designer] Castro Smith here, it’s like being on an MA again,” she says.
Initially inspired by Hans Eijkelboom’s 1978 work The Ideal Man, which saw the Dutch photographer ask several women to describe their ideal man and subsequently dress as these ideals for a series of portraits, it got Saunders thinking about how character is expressed through clothing. In the film we see three models take on different iterations of Saunders’ ideal man, which the designer distilled into five categories using the language of ball culture: Man Going to his First Ball in Heels; Gangsta Pretending to be Corporate: Super Nerd at Dancehall Concert; College Grad with a Diploma, and Gully Queen at his Engagement Party. Each transition sees the models turned out in different looks—lightweight tailoring is contrasted by denim jackets made in partnership with Wrangler, followed by vests cut from ribbed cotton-jersey and ruched Jamaican tourism T-shirts.