Ahluwalia Reveals Its First Women’s Designs In A Collaboration With Ganni

“It makes so much sense, but it’s so random at the same time – which I really love.” So says Priya Ahluwalia of her new collaboration with Ganni. On paper, the two do seem like unlikely partners –Ahluwalia being a budding menswear label based in London, Ganni a global womenswear brand in Copenhagen – but aren’t those the best matches? Both labels share a core value of sustainability, and were looking to do more than your typical marketing exercise.

Ganni’s creative director Ditte Reffstrup discovered Ahluwalia through a friend and reached out immediately (a message so surprising to Ahluwalia that she checked LinkedIn to ensure the email address was real). They had a few calls and decided to work together on a project that would push Ganni’s upcycling efforts – and then the pandemic hit. The project was put on ice, but within a few months, Ganni found itself with an overstock of garments and fabrics ready to be reimagined.

“We’ve done these small upcycling collections in the past as part of our commitment with the Global Fashion Agenda to work towards a circular approach,” Nicolaj Reffstrup, Ganni’s CEO, explains. “We want to make it a steady component of our business, not just a marketing capsule.”

“And Priya is the expert,” Ditte says. “Working with upcycling can be difficult, because you might be a little tired of the clothes, or it can look a little earthy, so Priya came in and really gave it all a new life. When we saw her first drawings, we knew it was going to be huge.”

Ahluwalia described the collaboration as something of a model for how she’d like to work with brands in the future. “To be honest, a bigger brand will often want to work with a smaller one, but they just want to take and not really give much back,” she says. “But this has been nothing but a pleasure. As well as designing the product together, this has been so instrumental for my business and supportive of me as a small designer. I speak to Nicolaj on a regular basis about business strategy, I spoke to the e-commerce team about my new website, and it’s been really great for me to learn about a womenswear business from the inside. Ganni is so clever in so many ways, from community building to transparency, and it’s become so cult – people love it,” she continues. “I really just launched as a menswear designer because it was just me, and I couldn’t do it all. So it will be really nice to have my voice in the women’s market.”

The collection showcases Ahluwalia’s first-ever women’s designs. You’ll notice a glimpse of her menswear signatures in the piped and collaged tracksuits, but otherwise it’s happily divergent. The minidress is the key silhouette, patchworked in leather and faux snakeskin in one look or in bias-cut panels of zebra jersey in another. “We were talking a lot about wanting to party [after lockdown], and what I would wear to go out and dance with friends,” Ahluwalia says. “How could we make figure-hugging clothes that will make you feel great, without it being too revealing? That was really important. I just want people to wear it and feel really confident.”

The collection will be available in Ganni stores worldwide and online in limited quantities, but there’s a second Ganni x Ahluwalia collection coming later this year. In the meantime, Ahluwalia confirmed she will introduce womenswear of her own (though a date is TBD), and Ganni plans to build on its learnings from their partnership. “There is no doubt that Priya really inspired our team’s approach to upcycling,” Ditte says. “Instead of being something you need to do, it’s something that is actually super fun to do. The way she played around with it was super inspiring and will for sure be part of our collection going forward.”