For its FW25 collection, grounds ventures into the surreal, crafting a world that is both bizarre and unsettling̶an “uncanny valley” brought to life. Marking the brandʼs further foray into clothing, this new evolution remains in tune with groundsʼ signature sculptural footwear, bridging avant-garde silhouettes with the philosophy of leap gravity.
Styling by Betsy Johnson elevates this aesthetic into a radical statement, introducing unexpected transformations̶hands becoming shoes, structured elements meeting nonchalance, a lazy yet provocative everyday aesthetic with a kinky twist.
grounds continues to evolve its signature footwear, featuring exaggerated outsoles and high-tech constructions that challenge perception. The brand now introduces an elevated eyewear collection, further expanding its immersive universe, taking apparel design from the grounds up, always relying on the feet and its relation to the ground.
We met its founder and creative director Mikio Sakabe after the show for discussing life, brand and collection:
What is design today? According to you, what’s fashion?
Fashion means freshness of life. And design means to transforming the era into a product.
And what’s Grounds?
How do you “talk about” fashion through your collections?
New relation with the human and the ground (gravity), this is ultimately a new suggestion for humans to live.
How could you describe your style?
Inspirations come from myself being based in Tokyo, absorbing all kinds of ethnical cultures of Asia now.
“Through shoes, we create a new way of communication between the earth and human beings”, that’s what we read in your brand presentation.
What does it mean? Who is your community made up of?
In human lives, we cannot separate us being attached to the rules of gravity.
No matter when we are even sleeping or sitting down.
If that relationship changes, our lives would change and that is what I want to explore.
In that sense, footwear is the one and only attachment to the ground, and changing that would mean to change the relation with earth and gravity. Our community started with young generations in Tokyo who love fashion and subculture but now its expanding globally, and very interesting to see the different perceptions of our style.
What’s your background?
Mainly from the Royal Academy of Antwerp.
Let’s talk about the FW25-26 you’ve presented at PFW!
Do you have any favourite piece from the collection?What’s its message?
How do you think you elevated the shoes through the garments?
Our collection was shown at this abandoned building in the basement, which was perfect for this season’s theme ‘uncanny valley’ – that describes the ‘weird’ and ‘off’ feeling of facing something human-like but not exactly (aka AI).
As grounds rooted deeply in footwear, it’s the other way around for us, we elevate the garments and silhouettes based off our footwear design; the garments are depicting everyday life familiarity but added edge and humor with Betsy Johnson styling for this season.SKYSCRAPER and CRYSTAL outsoles are my favorite but as we debuted our first runway show this time, talking about the style in total makes a lot more sense rather than focusing on shoes itself only, and that includes the sunglasses topped on the head (is planning to drop this summer!), which completes the unique silhouette.
“Fashion should be a form of escapism, and not a form of imprisonment”, Alexander McQueen said.
In 2025, can fashion still be an escape route, a way to escape social conventions?
In a big picture yes, but one thing changed from his era is that fashion used to be the representative of escapism, but now we need to focus more on co-living with social conventions, find a clever way to escape, by not resisting against it but more with the flow, and create revolution in a subtle way which people don’t even notice.
A letter to your future self.
And good luck for rest of your life.
