It was always going to be beauty. This year’s Notting Hill Carnival landed on one of those magical, ridiculously hot weekends where ‘wearing a shirt’ as a concept easily loses all meaning by midday. The good weather happened to highlight a landmark year. 2019 marks 60 years since the first Carnival, initially an indoor event organised by Claudia Jones to celebrate Caribbean culture in the capital. A few years later, in 1966, the event moved out to west London’s streets thanks to local resident Rhaune Laslett.
And so this past weekend, that heady mix of perfect weather and perennial community spirit on both the Sunday and Monday turned Carnival into the sort of sweat-slicked couple of days that everyone there will still be feeling in their thighs and calves by the end of the week. We asked photographer Wunmi Onibudo to head over and snap some pictures along the parade and by the soundsystems. Here’s what she saw.
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