A Feel For Fashion: Dal Chodha

Where do you look for new ideas or voices in fashion? 

Everywhere, which sounds like a cliché but increasingly I think the most interesting observations, ideas and critiques of fashion are coming from its sidelines. I love having my headphones in but turned off when walking around shops, galleries and other places where cultural production is on display. You get a truer sense of the impact of the creative industries in that way. It also forces you to become a more rigorous observer. Everyone is looking at the shows at the same time now, so there’s a need for a harder, closer approach.

What is the most significant change you are seeing in fashion right now? 

Everyone is exhausted. I think McQueen’s SS2004 Deliverance show, which was staged by Michael Clark like the finale scene of They Shoot Horses, Don't They? was depressingly prophetic. Fashion has splintered off into many strands and now you can enter it through different layers of significance. The larger conglomerate brands are dominant, but they now have a different role compared to the smaller, independents. I think the hierarchy of fashion – much like other social and political structures around the world – are in tumult. It’s an exciting but anxious time. In terms of the clothes, my students are all dressing like fashion editorials from 2005. 

Who or what is generating the greatest influence in fashion today? 

This is a difficult thing to articulate here, but I will try. I think ‘influence’ is the thing that needs unpacking. Again the hierarchies are all upside down, the notion of people being famous for being famous has really created a network of authority. The people inside your phone (on TikTok or Instagram) whom we observe every day are just as powerful as any reality TV star, iconoclast designer or artistic director. Claire McCardell, Claude Montana, Christina Aguilera, Claude Cahun, Charlie XCX are all sort of shaping visual culture at the same time! It’s a much messier landscape today and we – the observers – have a lot more personal responsibility to try and work through it. When I was growing up, we looked to fashion to tell us what to think, how to be, what to aspire towards. That is not what fashion does today.  

AI will continue to disrupt and impact how we live and work. What excites you and what concerns you? 

I am always reading and talking about AI with colleagues and students; it is not something I fear when I think about our work and our industry, but I also work hard to resist it as much as I can (which is hard). But I think we need to ask ourselves broader questions about the kind of fashion industry we want. Already much of what is written during the shows is generated or at least mediated by the press offices and C-suite executives. Very few genuine critics exist and the ones that do have their favourites. ChatGPT would do a better job of reporting on the season than many of my peers because, in some ways, it is more neutral – it does not have a publisher to answer to. I think we need to demand more of fashion: better campaigns, better writing, better clothes.  

How do you think fashion can spark and sustain desire with so much else going on in the world? 

After the pandemic I wrote about this for i-D. I was stuck on this idea that was gaining traction that fashion needed to respond to every political and social difficulty in the world. Some designers have always used their politics to make clothes, and it is important that that still happens. But a lot of designers come into the business of fashion because they are drawn to beauty, or aesthetics — something more one-dimensional and immediate. A 4,000-euro pant is not going to re-shape any of the horrible things happening across the world. I think today we place too much emphasis on fashion. We want it to do too much.  

Do you have an industry story or experience that you have never talked about? 

I think everyone aspiring to be in fashion should work in retail at some point first. When I was a student at Central Saint Martins in the early 00’s I worked in Gucci on Old Bond Street and also a little bit at Celine. It was the best fashion education I ever received because immediately I understood what and whom the runways and the campaigns were for. Pete Burns once asked me to put some shoes on hold for him during the sale but never came back. Mary J Blige came into Celine and we were all told to try and sell her a white fox-fur coat that was in the window. She shrugged, "I don’t need another fur." It was fabulous. 

Do trends still matter? 

They still matter to magazines, but I don’t think they matter to consumers. I think some kind of consensus is helpful to your job. If three people do bell-shaped sleeves or green hats, then you have something to grab onto and pitch to an editor. But for the average person in the street? The idea of buying into a trend might be losing its allure.  

Who are your fashion heroes? 

Claude Montana, Zoran, Shirin Guild and Donna Karan.  

Tell us something surprising about how you got to where you are today? 

Despite having no fashion or arts influence from my family, I started drawing clothes as soon as I could hold a pencil. I still have some of the ones I did as a teenager, and they are really bad. My journey has been conventional in that I went to Central Saint Martins and I am still here now (albeit in a different chair!). The one thing I have never done is plan ahead; I have just followed my instinct. It means I am not rich, but I am happy.  

What has been a highlight of your career so far? 

Working with students is really important to me – in a way I did not foresee when I first started teaching in 2008. You do not have time to be jaded about the state of fashion when you are in front of young people every day. There’s room for them, there’s room for change, and I am privileged to be a part of shaping them in a small way.  

What three words or ideas might guide your professional growth through the coming year? 

Just Do It (!). I am thinking about a new project that Jane Howard and I will publish later this year as part of Archivist Addendum. It has had enough time to fester and now just needs to get out of our heads.  

What is one positive objective or goal that you would like to see the industry work towards? 

I think we need much more honesty. The fantasy that fashion offers is needed now more than ever. But the privilege to create it has to come with some very real and difficult conversations. Why are we so focussed on selling more, making more money, tearing through human creative spirit to make content that no-one cares to even look at for longer than a second. I love fashion, and because I love it, I am okay to admit when it is failing. 

This interview has been lightly edited.