style

C'est Bon's PFW FW23 Collection 'Industrial Dialogue' is an Ode to the Motor City

C'est Bon

Published Jan 18, 2023

C’est Bon, the streetwear luxury brand founded by Mamadou Bah is taking it back to their Motor City roots with their latest FW2023 “Industrial Dialogue” collection. With the brand set to showcase their sophomore collection during Paris Fashion Week, the capsule is an ode to industrial DNA of Detroit where Mamadou was raised, and is balanced with the warm tones of Mamadou’s Guinean roots.

This “Industrial Dialogue” is a little bit of old school Motown mixed with a little bit of new school, with standouts including the Iridescent Cotton Twill Stone Green Telegraph Pants, the Langford Pant which is a Cotton Ripstop Cargo Pant with zipper openings that exposes the Graffiti style logo hit. There’s also a set of straight pants that showcases intricate stitch detailing that portray a lake break, and the Cargo quilted Insulated pants with a painted concrete print.

C'est Bon

What else is a part of this FW23 extravaganza?

Well, there’s the Bloom Jacket which is a nod to West BloomField and how everyone growing up in the inner city of Detroit aspires to move to those suburbs. And then we have the Spirit Sweater which embodies what the Spirit of Detroit Statue in Downtown Detroit represents of God and Human Relations. Oh, and there’s the Vanden Sweater, a nod to the Vandenberg World Cultures Academy, the elementary school Mamadou would go to after moving from Guinea that exposed him to different cultures very early on, all while having to take ESL classes as half the student body was bilingual.

C'est Bon

The subtle references of Bah’s Detroit upbringing can also be found with the gritty tonal graphics, skyline stitching & blue collar worker jacket that is the uniform for many in the ‘Motor City’.

Here’s what Bah had to say about this newest presentation.

C'est Bon

“Moving from Guinea to Detroit, early on I didn’t really feel a difference in the landscape due to innocent eyes. Growing up as my appreciation for design evolved, I realized my biggest source of inspiration is my own personal story, looking at how housing can be provided with corrugated steel, bamboo sticks and adobe with some concrete mixture in Guinea, but in Detroit, you get these solid brick facade houses with balloon frame structures, and Skyscrapers with 'I' beams structures. The juxtaposition between both ways of living and building always intrigued me.

"Coming from where I came from, I want to be the beacon of light that the youth can look to as inspiration to dream beyond their landscape. We chose to have a kid run out while rolling a tire, because that was our form of entertainment growing up in Guinea, and seeing how that seamlessly moved me to Detroit 'Motor City' was a coincidental moment.”

C'est Bon

Detroit’s rigid temperatures were a source of inspiration for this 35-piece FW2023 collection, which continues to be a blend of modern culture, heavily influenced by Sports and contemporary Art, and C’est Bon’s theme of keeping God and Family close.

Keep your eyes peeled for the collection to drop on the C'est Bon website.