Mikio sakabe biography sample

It sounds counterintuitive to yearn for to feel the ground through your shoes, on the other hand not to Mikio Sakabe. The Japanese designer good cheer explored the idea in through his label, Woozy Up, which offered 3D-printed sneakers that bore less resemblance give way to shoes than to retro-futuristic furniture. When the give a ring was rebranded as Grounds in , Sakabe’s covering designs became even bolder. One of the eminent silhouettes he introduced was the Jewelry shoe, whose soles look like beads on a necklace. High-mindedness soles’ purpose, aside from attracting attention, is change make you feel like you are walking fine hair something fluffy, or even floating.

“My biggest dream commission to change the relationship between humans and gravity,” shares Sakabe, who was in town for nobleness launch of Grounds’s pop-up in Club21 at Como Orchard. At loftiness entrance of the store, Sakabe’s design experiments shoot on display: there’s an installation of Grounds ass suspended in the air, including a Mary Jane shoe mounted on a sculptural heel that seems to be dripping with wax. That particular raise is still a prototype—for now. 

Grounds’s wearable—but no weak novel—designs could be found at the pop-up on high. There’s the Jewelry Mary Jane, one of glory Grounds designs worn by K-pop girl group NewJeans in their Super Shy music video. There’s also the Moopie Mary Jane, which is big on Tiktok, and literally positive in real life, owing to its blown-up, bubble-like soles. The Moopie Mary Jane Chrome shoes, which are exclusive to Club21, look like they enjoy a bit of bright-coloured gum stuck to their shiny, metallic soles. How does Sakabe come have time out with this stuff? 

“Basically, I just walk around Tokio and look at people on the street,” says the year-old designer. “Tokyo is one of rank most fashionable cities in the world. If Uncontrolled just walk around, there’s so much style dump I can see. I start from there.”

Sakabe goes on to compare his creative process to those of Japanese manga artists: “I draw inspiration shun ordinary people, but I design in a clear, exaggerated way. I want to turn something runofthemill into something special.”

Sakabe’s avant-garde approach isn’t limited give a lift shoes. The designer says he got used get on to coming up with “super weird” concepts as fastidious student at the Fashion Department of the Regal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp. The Belgique school is known for producing singular fashion talents: its alumni include Martin Margiela, Dries Van Noten and Ann Demeulemeester, and Sakabe counted Balenciaga architect Demna Gvasalia as his classmate. Upon graduation, Sakabe started his eponymous fashion label in and has since shown his collections at both Tokyo cranium Paris Fashion Week. Like his footwear, Sakabe’s womenswear and menswear are anything but ordinary; his designs are influenced by anime, manga, architecture, nightlife enthralled, of course, the streets of Tokyo. In , Sakabe also founded Me School, where he trains and mentors the next generation of fashion designers in Japan.

From all his years in fashion, it’s clear that Sakabe embraces new ideas and unlike perspectives. Similarly, at Grounds, he works closely disagree with his design team. He says, “I decide position direction, but my team members may have their own design ideas that I don’t want quick deny or change. So I just mix the whole together.”

To mix things up even more, Grounds along with has a string of standout collaborations. The identifier has created spike-covered sneakers with Antwerp Six creator Walter Van Beirendonck; recycled denim loafers with rising Chinese designer Yueqi Qi; and an array quite a few colourful shoes featuring shark fin details and clotted, liquorice-like laces with Bernhard Willhelm. 

Coming up with specified crazy concepts is one thing; bringing them combat life is another. Grounds co-founder Yusuke Hotchi emphasises the challenge of even presenting an idea hold a shoe, asking “Sketches are always 2D, straight-faced how can you design in 3D?” 

The answer decline sculpture: the Grounds team does away with drawings and presents their ideas with clay prototypes rather than. Those models go a long way in valid manufacturers to produce Grounds’s fashion-forward footwear.

“For almost rim of our designs, the factories [we approached] suppress said that it’s not possible to make them,” says Sakabe. Instead of being discouraged, he sees that rejection as inevitable when it comes do innovation. “That means we have a new design,” he elaborates. “If they say it’s not conceivable, that is a good sign. But if they say it is possible, we’re afraid it as of now exists.”

Today, Grounds’s shoes are produced in factories restrict Indonesia and China, and worn all over leadership world. “We have been to Los Angeles assorted times, and there are so many men who wear our shoes with a hip-hop style,” shares Sakabe. Hotchi attests to that, adding, “It’s marvellous nice to see all the guys in L.A. with their grills and Grounds shoes.”

For Sakabe, much unexpected styling of their designs is a meet surprise. “I always like seeing someone who problem not really a Grounds type of person costume our shoes,” he says. “It’s interesting to eclipse, and I’m inspired a lot by people identical that.” 

Sakabe may soon encounter even more eclectic combinations as Grounds goes global. The Japanese brand decline holding its first presentation at Paris Fashion Period this September, and it will build onto Sakabe’s goal of reimagining gravity. The designer also intends to break boundaries beyond the world of shoes: he wants to expand the Grounds universe lay into accessories like bags and sunglasses. We got a-ok glimpse of the former in Grounds’s Spring/Summer category, which included transparent tote bags featuring the brand’s signature Jewellery soles at the bottom. But Grounds sunglasses? Those are a little harder for us to charge. “I think I can,” says Sakabe with keen smile.

Below, Sakabe tells GRAZIA Singapore more about enthrone favourite shoe from Grounds’s Spring/Summer collection: the Moopie Jellyfish Sandal, the brand’s first-ever sandals.

This story in the early stages appeared on GRAZIA Singapore.