Meet Yaku Stapleton Winner Of The L’Oreal Award At The Central Saint Martins MA Fashion Show 2023
Image By Courtesy of Yaku Stapleton
Twenty graduating MA Fashion students recently unveiled their collections for #MAFCSM23.
One student was named the winner of the L’Oréal Professionnel Creative Award and two were awarded the Canada Goose HUMANATURE award for responsible design.
Judged by Ib Kamara, Editor-in-Chief Dazed and Art & Image Director Off-White™, the L’Oréal Professionnel Creative Award went to MA Fashion Menswear student Yaku Stapleton, whose collection is called The impossible Family Reunion in RPG Space.
Yaku Said
I’m an MA Fashion student at UAL Central Saint Martin’s sponsored by LVMH, British Fashion Council, and Metallic Inc. My research focuses on perception, natural form, identity, and sustainable practice. My primary references have included Afro-Futurism and online role-playing games like RuneScape.
My recently completed pre-collection intertwined these topics together through 5 looks featuring a 6-arm puffer jacket, latex dragon wings, and upcycled mycelium texture garments. My final collection will be exhibited at London Fashion Week in February 2022.
My approach to expanding my skillset is fuelled by problem-solving and reaching beyond conventional fashion practices. I like to substitute drawing for plasticine sculpting to add dimensionality to my designs. I turn to 3D scanning, Clo3D, and digital development before returning to the physical through garment construction, before turning to games design to expand the ways of presenting my work.
While I am always open to freelancing opportunities, my current focus primarily lies with my final MA collection, for which I’m open to collaborating with other artists and exploring sponsorship opportunities.
"Research into the Afro-Futurism movement opened the opportunity to introspect my own past and investigate how fantasy, online role-player games, and my previous research in perception, scale, and human form can combine. I drafted character designs based on my family and then sought to realize these characters in garments, finding a balance between fashion and costume design.
On winning the L'Oreal Award, Yaku said:
"I am still lost for worlds and I think it will be a while before I feel back on earth. I already felt on cloud nine for producing a collection I was proud of and being given the opportunity to share it with others. So being awarded the L'oreal prize felt completely surreal. I am beyond grateful and super excited for what's to come."
Writing in Vogue, Sarah Mower said:
"To watch a Central Saint Martins MA graduation show is to dip a thermometer into a cauldron of the imaginations, tastes, and beliefs that are firing the young people who will soon be unleashed on fashion. You don’t go there, either as an audience member, or as a prospective student, expecting nice. There are no classes, academic dissertations, or business studies on the curriculum. Instead, each cohort is confronted with a more nebulously challenging form of training: being urged to be risk takers, go deep into their instincts and identities, to be obsessive about research and technique."
The work of all 50 MA Fashion 2023 graduating students is celebrated in a fashion film, MA Fashion Turn to the Left, by Liam Leslie, which premiered after the show and all of the work has been photographed for a Lookbook on SHOWStudio.
