Minutes before he was announced as the winner of L’Oréal’s Professionnel Creative Award at Central Saint Martins’s MA fashion show in late February, the designer Yaku Stapleton could be found pacing inside the venue, trying to calm himself down while “swearing at the wall.”
He’d just experienced, for the first time, the chaos that is backstage at a runway presentation: shoving models into their looks, running back and forth trying to locate said models, pinching and pulling on the clothing to make sure everything looked just right. One of his models was supposed to go out with no hair showing; just as they stepped onto the runway, he realized their locks were in full view.
“For goodness sake!” Stapleton, speaking to me from his family home a month later in St. Albans, England, recalls thinking at the time. “I don’t usually get stressed, but I was like, ‘Wow, this is intense.’” When a CSM tutor found the 25-year-old taking a breather post-show, Stapleton thought he might be “told off for swearing at the wall. I was like, ‘Am I in trouble? Just tell me, and I’ll prepare my apology.’”
Stapleton dressing one of his models before the Central Saint Martins MA show.
Courtesy of Yaku Stapleton
Instead, Stapleton was ushered onstage, and given something far more gratifying: a trophy for his collection, titled “The Impossible Family Reunion in RPG Space,” which featured looks based on a number of his family members’ personalities, reimagined for them if they were characters in a video game. The result was a standout collection that caught the eye of Ib Kamara, editor in chief of Dazed magazine and Off-White’s art and image director, who judged the competition. Models—including Stapleton’s real-life sister, Steph—donned supersize puff coats in Pepto Bismol pink with loads of extra arms; giant cargo pants saddled by pockets; soft, slipper-like shoes, knitted hoods that connected to chunky sweaters and zip-ups. One model hit the…
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