grounds AW26

VAGUE presents grounds AW26 by Karina So.

First Thoughts: We Are Not Alone at grounds AW26

Some designers build worlds through narrative. Others, through silhouette. At grounds, Mikio Sakabe has always charted a third path: gravity, or more precisely, the feeling of briefly escaping it. His shoes balloon outward with the buoyancy of science-fiction bubbles, making the wearer look as though they are hovering a few centimetres above the ground. And for Autumn/Winter 2026, the collection drifted somewhere even stranger. The guiding force this season was the ghost, particularly the long-haired spectres of Japanese folklore, those mournful spirits whose dark tresses spill forward like a curtain between worlds. Storming down the runway, his models appeared wearing hats and headpieces threaded with long brunette strands — some braided, others trembling as they walked — launching an eerie inversion of the usual runway gloss.

Looking downward, the shoes themselves carried a similar ghostly presence with sculpted hands forming the sole, palms cupped beneath the foot as if physically carrying the wearer forward. It was an image that landed somewhere between comic and unsettling. Backstage, after the show, Sakabe described the gesture to us as a metaphor for the ghosts people carry through life and the unseen weight that quietly accompanies the body through space.

Sartorially, this sense of supernatural interference was best encapsulated, in my humble opinion, in the morose Peter Pan-collared dress that appeared suspended mid-motion, its fabric blown sideways as if caught in a permanent gust, or perhaps held up by the hands of an impish yūrei. Another piece, a tailored blazer rose into a curious hump at the back, evoking the mischievous yokai Obariyon, the spirit that leaps onto a traveller’s shoulders and demands to be carried home. Many of the proportions throughout the collection also leaned deliberately off-balance, suggesting bodies at the mercy of invisible forces.

It is tempting to read the show simply as gothic fantasy. But Sakabe’s work rarely sits comfortably in one register. In an exclusive interview with VAGUE, he describes the collection as an ode to the ancient ghost stories of Japan, a concept of post-mortem existence rooted in Buddhism and Shinto that dates back to the Heian period (794–1185). This studious fascination is precisely what makes grounds so compelling: the way its exaggerated reveries translate into real clothing and, crucially, real footwear that people actually wear on the street. Tapping into an increasing yearning for more flights of fancy amidst global wars and economic chaos, the brand’s inflated sneakers have become cult objects precisely because they are both cartoonish and oddly practical. With this collection, Sakabe proposes that these whimsical manifestations are actually the result of invisible presences. He simply decided to lift the veil and make them visible. And what a sight to behold, indeed.

credits

words — karina so.

filmmaking — karina so.

design — karina so.

media production — VAGUE