Inside a raw, concrete car park in the 8th arrondissement, grounds cracked open its SS26 universe a darkly playful dive into beauty, decay, and mutation. Photographer Denzil Jacobs captures the first looks backstage before they graced the parking made runway ground.
The Japanese label, led by Mikio Sakabe, has always toyed with the uncanny from its gravity-defying soles to silhouettes that blur human and creature. This season, that tension intensifies. Classic tailoring is stripped bare and re-spliced; jewelry looks rusted, like it’s been dug up from another age. Stained socks become gloves, wired ties twist with a pulse of their own, and obi belts reappear, rebuilt from waste. Oversized, insect-like sunglasses warp faces into alien shapes, while kimono-length sleeves drag across the ground like shadows.
And at the core the shoes. Transparent soles, bat-winged platforms, and those signature bulbous forms that make you feel half-floating, half-monster. It’s fashion caught between flight and fall, elegance and eeriness.
Founded in 2019, grounds started as a footwear label exploring the pull between body and gravity. Now, as the brand expands into full collections, it continues to question what it means to stand — and what happens when you start to drift above it all.
For more @grounds.official
