Priya Ahluwalia’s collection TRACES embarks on the voyages of the mind and lots of ideas around migration “whether it’s migration of the mind, of people, ancestors, or ideas.” Her questioning of “What happens to human beings as we migrate around the world?” explores the essence of movement and when multiple cultures come together because of migration. All the research of literature, film, music, books is what’s filtered into Ahluwalia’s work.
With sustainability being part of her ethos, she says “My label is a curation of values, through how we choose our fabrics to everything else” and with family trips to Nigeria and India, the visible consumption of fashion overproduction was at the forefront, involving the exploitation of people in South Asia.
It all makes for a collection that feels like a confident refining of the relationship between the clothes and the stories that inform them — there’s no need for the garments to wear their references on their sleeves, for the research they’re a product of permeates the very cloth they’re cut from. And all that aside, this is Ahluwalia’s most broadly appealing collection to date. - i-D
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