Priya Ahluwalia

AHLUWALIA Priya

Priya Ahluwalia is a British menswear designer with a sustainable edge. Taking inspiration from her multi-cultural upbringing and heritage she uses deadstock and vintage items to bring her designs to life and offer something unseen to the menswear market. In 2018, Ahluwalia released Sweet Lassi, a book representing her first response to her discovery that vast amounts of clothing waste discarded by Western countries was being sent to India to be sold by traders as a way of ‘recycling.’ “Looking at the piles and bundles of all these different garments sticking out of each other, that’s when I thought of the idea of patchworking things to create a new textile” (Ahluwalia, 2018) It is this that has influenced her style today. Alongside this idea of patchworking, Ahluwalia also takes inspiration from nostalgia, piecing together memories using old family photos to influence her work. For example, her S/S20 collection reimagined her parents’ wardrobe, using the philosophy of passing clothing down through generations to inspire her designs. “Designing is essentially problem solving, reducing negative impacts of production into your problems to solve can actually be really interesting and good for the planet,” (Ahluwalia, 2019) I was inspired by this quote and Ahluwalia’s work as her use of second-hand fabrics mixed with family nostalgia is something, I want to bring into my outcome creating a multisensory experience for consumers.