I think it's quite funny when I get asked a question about being a woman designing
menswear because, historically if we look at all the big houses, it was men designing womenswear.
I decided to start with menswear rather than womenswear because I find that men have been
wearing practically the same thing for like 50 years, maybe even 100, so I felt that there was
a lot of room to experiment and to push boundaries – to test a male wardrobe and encourage people to
wear something slightly different. I also really do like the fact that menswear has got quite a
lot of codes and like rules which have historical significance, and it's about playing with those,
you know whether it's about sports insignia being on the left hand side because it's on your heart,
and as I started to add that with creative research it was always about, like almost remixing
that. You know always nodding to the rules and traditions of menswear but definitely putting a
little twist on it, I think that's definitely been something I've done since the beginning
of the brand. As a designer growing up I knew I wanted to be in fashion but I didn't see anyone
that looked like me anywhere and as I got older, I started to really respect my heritage and where
I came from and really started to realise that there was not much representation of it at all,
so through the brand it's about me exploring my own personal history, because we don't get
taught it in British schools adequately, but also celebrating it and highlighting it. So you know
it might be that I'm focusing on an artist or a graphic designer that's from Nigeria or looking at
Indian textiles – there's always something – a nod to it in every collection or project that I do.
When I'm developing a collection I collect research from a number of places so it could
be books, films, exhibitions, and then I start to pull together the images and the research and I
like to work on big boards so I put the research on the board and it does look kind of maybe
a bit much, but I know how it's organised, so there's different areas that are inspiring
different things or informing different things. So one section could be for graphics and another
could be for silhouettes or proportions, it works like that and then I start to sketch from there.
For the Joy Track Set, which is a part of the Liberation collection, I was
designing the collection in a time that I wanted to sort of celebrate
Black joy and resistance and so we wanted it to be really positive. This is the fabric that is
included in the Joy Track Set and I worked on it with a graphic designer called Dennis McInnes.
It was inspired and informed by West African textiles but we then decided to print it on a
jersey, like a tri-core shiny jersey, to kind of modernise it and put a new spin on it.
As we were designing a tracksuit we wanted to make sure it was comfortable to wear,
so it's a jersey that's really soft on the inside but it's shiny on the outside so it's kind of like
a little bit glam still, but it's very comfortable and yeah you can wear it anywhere. We always look
at waves and organic lines and shapes it was definitely important to bring that in to the
print – it's something that we represent in different ways whether it's through actual
graphic design or whether it's through paneling, there's always a wave in every collection.
I think one of the most like archetypal or important outfits in a man's wardrobe
is a tracksuit and I think that it's an example of a modern phenomenon. People
were like so dismissive of them but they've now become a part of everyone's wardrobe – I'm
wearing one today. And so I wanted to take this beautiful print and put it on a
tracksuit which is something that people can wear and feel so comfortable in it and
feel like they can do anything in it. But because we've put these beautiful colours on the fabric,
but then also it's got the striped trim down the leg as well as the rib details on the collar,
it just means that it's a really striking and fun piece but people can wear it and feel really
relaxed in it and I think that's the funny thing about menswear, if you want to test a really bold
print what I figure is generally the silhouette needs to be something that's comfortable
because it's a bit of give and take to get people to start wearing something bolder and bolder.
At Ahluwalia we work responsibly as much as we can whether that's socially or environmentally
and you know that comes out of my research from going to India and Nigeria where I'm from and
looking into the secondhand clothing industry and seeing how much stuff is out there in the
world and how we need to cherish things that we create and it feeds into all aspects whether
that's about who we hire within the brand, what factories we work with, the materials we source,
we're always trying to figure out the best practices – you know we're not 100 perfect
but we're definitely trying to figure out a way that we can work positively within fashion.
I really do believe that fashion can be a force for change and a force for good if we innovate and
if we work together and if we research, so yeah it's a constant uphill battle but we keep going.