Priya Ahluwalia | Departures

If Priya Ahluwalia ascribed to an aphorism it would be ‘knowledge is power’. Throughout the course of our conversation at the designer’s central London studio, she frequently reflects on her lust for learning, whether that’s to better understand the news headlines or researching concepts for her rich and storied collections. This natural tendency for nerdiness, or what she calls being “a curious person”, has helped fuel Ahluwalia’s rise to becoming one of the most sought-after names in fashion.

In little over three years, she has gone from completing the MA Menswear at The University of Westminster to winning some of the most prestigious accolades on offer to young designers, among them the GQ x BFC Designer Menswear Fund, the Queen Elizabeth II Award for British Design and the LVMH Prize. Plus, the likes of Adidas, Ganni, Mulberry, Gucci, Dropbox and Microsoft have lined up to collaborate. All that and yet the first thing the 28-year-old tells me when we settle down to chat is, “I still live with my mum.”

Ahluwalia grew up in south-west London among a nurturing family – her mother is Indian, her father is Nigerian and her stepfather is Jamaican. “I was always the fashion girl. In primary school, there was a competition and I was voted most fashionable,” she recalls, laughing. “I started buying vintage really young and read fashion magazines from front to back.”

A “high achiever” throughout school, it was during her post-graduate studies that a trip to Lagos to visit her father proved pivotal. “While in the car, I noticed all these hawkers wearing second hand western clothing so I wound down the window and asked them about it. They told me about Aswani Market. I learnt about the West selling clothes given to charity for profit, which ends up being dumped or recycled in other parts of the world.” From there, she travelled to Panipat, the city north of Delhi often dubbed the ‘cast-off capital of the world’ and created her first photo book, Sweet Lassi. “I knew then that I wanted to work in a responsible way. My SS19 graduate collection was an exploration of that journey and of my dual heritage. That became the founding principles of the brand you see today.”

Her innovative practice is wedded to being environmentally and socially conscious. She only uses surplus, post-consumer, recycled and organic materials. Garments are made in women-owned factories and with social enterprises and her team is predominantly Black women. This way of working speaks to the global fashion industry’s post-pandemic rush to present itself as more mindful but for Ahluwalia it’s a given. “I do it because I believe fashion could be a real force for good,” she reflects. “But my contribution is miniscule and we’re fighting a losing battle unless the fast fashion businesses get on board. I just hope that as new generations come in, attitudes will change.”

Above all though, Ahluwalia is about handsomely crafted clothes steeped in meanings. Each season her moodboards overflow with inspirations found close to her heart and home. The resulting collections are often accompanied by a short film that expands the narrative, as is the case for FW21, entitled Traces. Drawing on Yaa Gyasi’s masterful novel Homegoing, the paintings of Kerry James Marshall and the Harlem Renaissance, Traces is a meditation on Syncretism - the magic that happens when cultures collide. Eminently wearable pieces nod to soccer kits, workwear and relaxed tailoring and are realized in an earthy color palette. Her signature pipe-seamed patchwork of fabrics reference migration maps and the central print is made up of a compass of afro combs. Meanwhile her film with director Stephen Isaac-Wilson featuring multi-instrumentalist cktrl is a salute brotherhood and unity through movement and jazz. It’s the full package – cerebral clothes made with love that real men yearn to wear.

For SS22 women get a piece of the action too with her first collection for him and her, and the film Parts of Me directed by Akinola Davies Jr. For this project with Mulberry, she reached for a sketchbook she’d long been compiling on Black and south Asian hair. Think UK garage ravers meets the photographic archive of J.D. ’Okhai Ojeikere. These are translated into wavy prints and embroideries hailing the artistry of braiding across figure-caressing silhouettes. “I was thinking about the female form. I wanted them to be clothes you could be comfortable in, and feel sexy in, and feel confident in,” she says. Today her own gloriously long braids are tied back nonchalantly and she’s wearing a mint-hued tracksuit that certainly means business.

London’s menswear scene is leading the world thanks to the accomplishments of diverse designers such as Martine Rose, Grace Wales-Bonner, Nicholas Daley, Saul Nash and Bianca Saunders. Ahluwalia is proud to stand alongside them and to be the role model she never had. “When I was growing up, other than Joe Casely-Hayford and Ozwald Boateng, there was no one in fashion who looked like me,” she says. “My generation is totally different. It’s beautiful, it’s vibrant. All of us explore our heritage in different ways and look how different our brands are. So, that shows you just how much there is to unpack through authentic storytelling.”

Last year Ahluwalia’s second book, Jalebi, saw the designer respond to the growing hostility in the UK against migration writ large by the Windrush Scandal, Brexit and Black Lives Matter protests. A collaboration with photographer Laurence Ellis, it’s an ode to Southall, home London’s Punjabi community. Similarly, Joy, her film commissioned for GucciFest and directed by Samona Olanipekin, celebrates the universal Black experience in the UK. From carnival to the boxing ring, from church to the dinner table, from Zimbabwe to Trinidad, a chorus of inter-generational voices share the importance of performing Afro-Caribbean rituals as acts of self-love.

“Joy was inspired by the book The Black House by Colin Jones about the lives of Black youths in the 1970s. That led me to speak to Jacquie and Natania Boyce about Rupert Boyce, who was one of the Mangrove Nine.” She pauses. Takes a breath. “I’ve got goosebumps. It makes me feel really emotional…” Her eyes begin to glisten as she takes another beat. “I remember being on set and thinking, ‘I need to take in and remember every detail for the rest of my life’. It was just one of the most important things I’ve ever done. I feel like I’m going to cry…” And she does, just for one moment, before wiping a tear away and continuing: “My step dad had passed away five months before so it was a tribute to his life and conversations that I’d had with him were instrumental for the film.”

Having accomplished so much so swiftly, and with the support and mentorship that has come with the awards she’s won – not to mention having a finance director for a mother – Ahluwalia is primed to realize her wider ambitions in the long term. “I want to walk into a house with an Ahluwalia sofa, Ahluwalia candles and Ahluwalia make-up; where you can moisturise with Ahluwalia Skin and wear Ahluwalia shoes,” she quips, smiling brightly now, and thinking blue-sky. “I want to do everything. I want a nice life!” If anyone can make the dream a reality, this whip-smart, genuine artist certainly can.

Photography: Laurence Ellis
Publication: Departures