YAKU SS26: A Ground to Stand On

Описание: The ImPossible Family Reunion in RPG Space reimagines Yaku Stapleton’s family as archetypes in a boundless fantasy world, each garment transforming their traits into identities with stories drawn from both birthed from the nostalgia of RPG games, the textures of the natural world, and viewed through the lens of Afrofuturism. Now, our path expands its reach while drawing closer to its roots, asking not only what a family can become in fantasy, but what fantasy itself can reveal about lineage, memory, and survival.

For Chapter 6, A Ground to Stand On, the journey continues, focusing on three key figures within the family. Lorrelle’s guardianship reflects our desire to protect what has been built. Ricky’s pragmatism speaks to the need for resilience in the face of shifting landscapes. Mum’s shapeshifting embodies adaptability – the capacity to hold multiple forms and truths at once. Together, they model survival and transformation, reminding us that identities are never static but evolving through the worlds we move across. Each character manifests across three states: base, warrior, elemental – tracing identity from the human to the mythic.

With Tutorial Island behind them, the family ventures into a broader world, teeming with histories of its own. Here, they encounter the Télavani: a collective of abstract figures informed by the pre-colonial resistance histories of Jamaica and St. Vincent. Grounded in real history yet expanded through myth, the Télavani embody a personal lineage of resilience, guardianship, and metamorphosis. Their survival is instinctive, their resistance eternal. This encounter raises a larger question: what does it mean to enter a world already shaped by others? Here, history is reimagined – what if those who arrived had sought to learn and exchange, rather than to take?

The Télavani’s exaggerated proportions inform the collection’s silhouettes and the interplay between body and terrain. Rooted so deeply in the land that they become almost indistinguishable from it, their forms echo mountains, jungles, and tides, evolving into guardians of memory and protectors of knowledge. Through them, we draw a direct line to Caribbean histories of resistance – communities that survived erasure by adapting, by becoming elemental themselves. This connection extends the family’s timeline further back, revealing hidden histories and deepening the continuity of self. For the audience, it becomes a call to reflect on their own ancestry – to seek out the stories that persist, even in the face of erasure.

Our sixth season represents a step toward focus and refinement – grounded yet expressive. Textile choices and surface treatments – camouflage, armour, and elemental textures – become portals into our narrative, with dyeing and printing serving as extensions of the story itself. The garments embody this duality. Rooted in natural materials and organic forms, they draw texture from the earth, colour from water, and silhouettes that balance subtle functionality with bold expression. Every piece becomes both a protective layer and a statement, anchoring us in the natural world while carrying the imagination forward.

Under the nurturing guidance of performance director Dermot Daly, our cast embodies these archetypes in motion. The score, written by Jordan Fox, blends influences of UK grime, jazz, medieval melodies, and our hero’s theme – built over our continued collaboration across the past few seasons – all through the lens of his unmistakable composer magic, giving the performance its pulse. The family is no longer frozen in time, but actively moving, evolving, and engaging with the world around them.

Behind the fantasy lies a collective process. Designing family members as archetypes is never solitary: it unfolds through collaboration between Yaku and a wider circle of makers, performers, and storytellers: a symbolic presence nurtured by the team. This shared authorship reflects our ethos: identity and survival are collective, not individual. Community remains at the heart of what we do. For us, the presentations are not commercial showcases but gatherings – where the alternate reality of the Im̶Possible Family Reunion becomes tangible.

At its heart, this chapter reflects on inheritance. Like every season, the growth of our characters mirrors our own growth as designers: a balance of honesty and imagination, heritage and transformation. The family’s encounter with the Télavani affirms a grounding truth: the future is rooted in the past, and resistance itself can be generative. It is a recognition of the histories embedded in the land, and the possibility of rewriting what could have been.

Yaku’s family not only discover A Ground to Stand On, but the reminder that every step forward rests on the endurance of those who came before.

Performance Director: Dermot Daly
Score: Jordan Fox
Make Up: Michelle Dacillo
Hair: Richard Phillipart
Video: Baile Ali
Production: Brian Jones & Blonstein Productions