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Priya Ahluwalia
Creative Director at Ahluwalia Studio

Priya Ahluwalia graduated with a masters in Menswear from the University of Westminster in 2018 and was in the first ever cohort of the MA Menswear course. Ahluwalia’s graduate collection was showcased in a London Fashion Week: Men’s show and went on to receive industry-wide recognition, being featured in i-D, Vogue UK, Dazed & Confused, New York Times, More or Less and Niijournal among others.
In November 2018, Ahluwalia went on to win the H&M Design Award 2019 which was judged by Charlie Porter, Christiane Arp, Jan-Michael Quammie, Stefan Cooke and H&M’s creative advisors, Ann-Sophie Johansson and Margareta van de Bosch.
Through her newly established brand, “Ahluwalia Studio”, Priya takes elements from her dual Indian-Nigerian heritage and London roots and explores the life of second hand and dead stock clothing, using textile techniques to give them new life. Ahluwalia photographs her own research which is an integral part to her design process.
Upon graduating, Ahluwalia released a book called Sweet Lassi. Sweet Lassi focuses on a 2017 trip to visit family, in Lagos, Nigeria. The designer noticed people wearing obscure British clothing. For example, she noticed a trader wearing a London Marathon 2012 shirt. Ahluwalia dug deeper, moving forward on a hunch that the presence of these textiles heralded a larger story about second hand-clothing. Ahluwalia then visited Panipat, a city 90 north of Delhi, to photograph the global garment recycling capital of the world. The piles of clothing seen in her resultant images explore the zeitgeist in contemporary design, simultaneously harking to heritage and contemplating sustainability.
Ahluwalia Studio is a brand that focuses on creating unique forward-thinking garments for the modern man, using responsible sourcing and manufacture techniques.
For AW19, Ahluwalia Studio takes inspiration from the tradition of passing clothes through families and between friends, the collection continues the brand’s philosophy of changing fashion industry practices through inventive approaches.
In January 2019, Ahluwalia Studio AW19 was showcased in collaboration with Adidas Originals at a Paris Fashion Week runway show.

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