Met Gala: Lewis Hamilton’s look inspired by the black Welsh gardener

Each year, stars attending the event – hosted by Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour – are given a theme to dress in, this year being “The Garden of Time”.

“What I love about the Met, and what Anna (Wintour) does with the Met, is I’m able to really dive deep into the theme,” Hamilton told Vogue on the red carpet.

“I did a lot of research and came across this 18th century gardener who, during the time of slavery, came from Africa to Wales and became the first black gardener in Wales. Wales.

“In adversity, he truly triumphed, so that’s where the inspiration really comes from.”

This gardener, John Ystumllyn, was taken from his home in West Africa when he was about eight years old and probably brought to Wales to become a servant to society’s aristocrats.

According to a biography written in 1888, a century after his death, John Ystumllyn recounted how “white men came and grabbed him and took him away.”

Hamilton pointed out the thorns on his outfit representing the pain caused by the slave trade.

Dr Marian Gwyn, of the Race Council Cymru, previously told BBC Wales that Ystumllyn’s kidnapping would have been “a very traumatic experience”.

“Yet despite the trauma of that, he came and settled in Wales – he made it his home,” she said.

He married a local woman, Margaret Gruffydd, who had been a maid at the Ystumllyn estate, and had seven children, five of whom survived to adulthood.

John was not enslaved himself. Dr Gwyn said he was “a truly free man” and was able to move from job to job.

His natural abilities in horticulture meant he never lacked work.