It’s a day of double celebration for Priya Ahluwalia. Today sees the London Fashion Week release of her film Parts of Me, heralding both the launch of her Ahluwalia collaboration with Mulberry and her first women’s collection, and she’s just been announced as the 2021 winner of the £150,000 BFC/GQ Menswear Designer Fund Award.
It’s no wonder her energy as a change-making designer is being recognized. Over the past year, Ahluwalia was presented the Queen Elizabeth Award for British Design, which spotlights emerging fashion designers for sustainable practices and community engagement; invited by Alessandro Michele to make a film for GucciFest; made another video for her fall 2021 men’s collection; and then pulled off a capsule women’s collection with Ganni, using the company’s deadstock.
Now comes this new film Parts of Me, which is a meditation on Black and Brown hair that she’s made with director Akinola Davies Jr. It’s a showcase for her spring 2022 collection, which also features her rethinking of the Mulberry Portobello Tote, as part of the British bag company’s 50th-anniversary celebration.
“I wanted to do this project about Black and South Asian hair, because it’s so special in both cultures,” Ahluwalia said. “It can be used as a tool of resistance, of expressing yourself, and it creates family bonds and passes down craft from generation to generation. Growing up, everyone remembers having their hair braided on a Sunday before going to school.” In the collection, which it goes without saying is sustainably sourced, the stylized signature prints are subliminally embedded with entwined geometries extrapolated from photographs of braids and textures of hair (her second collab with Lagos-born graphic artist Dennis McInnes). Wavy patterns flow over the Mulberry x Ahluwalia bags too, patchworked from surplus leathers by craftspeople in the company’s Somerset factory.
“I’ve been building these sketchbooks for ages, with things like vintage hair salon adverts, pictures of ’90s clubs, and the incredible photographs J.D. ’Okhai Ojeikere took of hairstyles in Nigeria. I thought it was the right time to use them, because it’s based on such a joyful part of culture and I just wanted to celebrate the whole artistry and the innovation of it,” she said. “Because coming out of the past year has been difficult, having to answer to things all the time about being Black and mixed heritage, and what’s going on.”
Ahluwalia reflects that being in the spotlight as a company owner and spokesperson for British Nigerian-Indian identity has frequently left her feeling “torn between ‘leave me alone,’ and if I don’t say something, then who else will?” But her influence in not just raising conversations, but directing them towards tangible outcomes is unwavering. Going into the Mulberry collab, she says, “we had some very frank conversations because I felt I was bringing a subject that is very culturally important, which I wanted to be sure would be respected and supported.” Discussions led to Mulberry’s updating of its corporate Diversity & Inclusion policy. “I asked to look at it and flagged it to them that they didn’t have anything about non-discrimination against hair.” Mulberry confirms that the company has signed up to the Halo Code for workplaces written by the U.K.’s Halo collective, which “explicitly protects employees who come to work with natural hair and protected hairstyles associated with their racial, ethnic, and cultural identities.” Ahluwalia smiled. “So that was special: to be able to implement a structural change.”
Meanwhile, there’s the ever-growing Ahluwalia design portfolio, which includes 10 women’s looks for the first time. “I wanted to do strong pieces, thinking what would I wear to a meeting, to a club, on a date?” she said. “I definitely didn’t want to just do menswear in women’s sizes. I wanted it to be quite sexy, and confident.” Amongst the pieces are slick patchwork tailored pantsuits, wide-legged denim, and a wardrobe of one-shouldered dresses and tops. “It so makes me want to go out and party,” she exclaimed.
Well, tonight she’s going to have the first chance to do that in ages, as guest-of-honor at the small, COVID-protocolled ceremony for her BFC/GQ award at the Serpentine Gallery. No one who knows her doubts that Ahluwalia will put her cash prize and mentoring to good use. Eyes on the future, this is a woman who’s certain where she’s going. “As a business owner, what I want to do is to grow to be a big company. Eventually I’d like to do accessories, homewear, put out films and books,” she said. “Because I want to prove that you can be a business, at scale, that does things properly.”
