Michael Olise x YAKU Is a Suit Worth a Film

For the 2026 Ballon d’Or, Michael Olise teamed up with London-based label YAKU and jewellery studio The Ouze to create a bespoke suit blending military tailoring, streetwear and handcrafted details. Captured in a 16mm short film, the project celebrates the creative process, craftsmanship and personal identity behind the look.

For the 70th edition of the Ballon d’Or, held in London this October, French footballer Michael Olise, born in 2001 and currently playing for Bayern Munich, decided to turn one of football’s most prestigious events into a creative project of his own.

Rather than simply wearing a designer suit on the red carpet, Olise chose to take an active role in creating his look, collaborating with independent designers and craftspeople and documenting the entire process through a 1-minute-40-second fashion film, shot entirely on 16mm film.

Titled MO 002, the short film was developed by the footballer’s in-house creative team, also responsible for his previous project, MO 001. From the initial sketches and pattern cutting to tailoring, silver casting and final fittings ahead of the ceremony, the camera captures every stage of the process. The real focus isn’t just the finished suit, but everything that happens before it is worn.

Bringing the vision to life is YAKU, a London-based fashion brand and creative studio founded in 2023 by British-Caribbean designer Yaku Stapleton alongside his partner Nas Kuzmich. The brand is known for its distinctive universe, blending streetwear, fantasy, Caribbean culture, family heritage and Afrofuturist influences. Afrofuturism, in particular, is a cultural and aesthetic movement that connects African and diasporic identities and histories with futuristic and science-fiction-inspired worlds.

For Olise, YAKU created a look that moves away from conventional red-carpet elegance, reinterpreting traditional tailoring through military references and contemporary streetwear.

One of the suit’s most distinctive features is the frogging, a decorative cord technique traditionally associated with historical military uniforms. On Olise’s jacket, these intricate details have been reworked to form his initials: a subtle way of turning a traditional tailoring technique into a personal signature, without relying on visible logos.

Adding another layer of craftsmanship is The Ouze, the jewellery project founded by Toby Vernon, who was responsible for the custom metalwork. The jacket features 30 handcrafted silver and amethyst buttons, arranged in two diagonal rows that become an integral part of the garment’s visual structure. Far from being simple accessories, these small pieces of jewellery transform the jacket’s fastening into a sculptural, decorative feature. Their creation, including the silver casting process, is also documented in the film.

But it is perhaps the silhouette that best reflects Olise’s personal style. The trousers completely reject the proportions of a traditional suit, featuring a low waist, relaxed volumes and a loose drape reminiscent of baggy jeans and streetwear culture.

The result is a suit that doesn’t try to fit Olise into the conventions of formalwear, but instead reshapes those conventions around his own identity.

And that’s what makes the project particularly interesting. Rather than using fashion simply as a tool for self-presentation, Olise chooses to highlight the creative process and the people behind what he wears. More than just a red-carpet look, it’s a project built around personal identity, where the suit is the final outcome, but the real value lies in the story of how it came to life.