the story itself: Elliot, who’s my brother, went out to encounter the physical embodiment of his past, to make peace with it. He has now come back to the family – I guess he was like a torchbearer – and said, ‘OK, this is what is ahead as a family. We must now all prepare for this journey that we are about to go on.’
The four sets are the four stages of preparation for this journey. There is ‘Meditation & Self-Reflection, then there is ‘Combat’ – so more of the typical fighting montage prep. Then there is the ‘Gathering’ section, which is the gathering side of hunting and gathering – necklace making, cooking, hanging fish. The last one is a ‘Learning’ area which is more scholarly. I am looking at that one as the people who note down important parts of history and plot out where we are going, so that everything is detailed and in order.
You also incorporate your Black identity into your work as well.
Yaku Stapleton: Fashion is really tricky – as is anything – being Black, because I am able to provide my own perspective, but then not many of us get to cut through and speak to more people. In your head you also feel responsible to do a good job and not just commodify your Blackness. You would hope that at least there is the opportunity for people to understand that.
We can express ourselves, it’s something we’re good at, but there’s also pain that comes with that, and I don’t want to commodify Blackness and people see it as just hope. They need to understand that there is pain that comes with that.
So it’s not a flattened experience.
Yaku Stapleton: It is tricky though. I think trying to work that out as a person, but also design at the same time, and to then channel that into clothing, will take much more time. How do you
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