Designer Profile 2022: Arjun Kilaru
I had the pleasure of interviewing Arjun Kilaru, third-time designer and ambitious triple major hailing from the San Francisco Bay Area. Besides designing for the show, he is also involved with the magazine, having started a fashion podcast. His past collections have explored a variety of topics including gender and the social aspect of fashion, so I was very excited to see what he is cooking up this year. Keep reading to find out!
How far along are you in your design process? 50% done with the sewing. I will probably get some more done today. I'm taking it slowly but surely.
Have you encountered any challenges? Nothing crazy. I mean, I’ve done this twice now, so I'm comfortable with how everything goes. I know that it will turn out okay, and I’m not worried about it. I’m having fun, you know, my roommate’s modeling for me.
Are there new discoveries or things you are experimenting with? I'm working on using more accessories. One of my pieces is going to be like a cloak that I'm making, for the person, I'm using a lot of accessories on the clothes. I'm using bobby pins and putting things on the pins.
For your collection this year, what inspires you? What is your design philosophy? A: My artistic inspiration came from a class that I took in the fall in the sociology department about cults and new religious movements, so each week we went over a new cult in length, discussed the motivations, the leaders, and one of the things we discussed was the fashion. There's a lot of cults that have very distinctive outfits, and you know, I was very interested in how these organizations have used fashion as a way to control people and make them feel separated from normal society and a part of the specific community. That's definitely inspired my collection this year.
Rajneeshpuram and his secretary Sheela. Image via
I want to go for a cult theme and specifically, I would say the cult of Rajneeshpuram inspired a lot of my outfits. It was near Antelope, Oregon in the 80s. They were a group of followers of this Indian guru who believed in free expression and a very communal type of lifestyle. They ended up committing bioterrorism, the largest biological warfare attack in U.S. history, actually. They sprayed a bunch of local restaurants with salmonella. The class was called the Prophet Q, it was marketed as a QAnon class, but it was really a cult of the week. I mean, they had very interesting fashion choices. They also wear the same outfits. A couple of other cults I was also interested in looking at, you know, Jonestown, there were extremely uniformed, everyone there wore the same outfits.
I'm going to have two of my male models probably wear the same outfit or similar outfits, and my female models will be the cult leaders wearing cloaks.
A scene from Wild Wild Country, which is based on the cult of Rajneeshpuram. Image via.
What doesn’t inspire you? Probably TikTok, I don't know, I don’t like the influencers. What else... I'm also inspired by Christopher Nolan films. I've been watching a lot of those recently, and I like how deep they pull you in. Nolan is very industrial and big budget, maybe that’s how I feel about my collection. Maybe it's kind of how I feel.
Has your design philosophy grown in the past few years? My themes in the past have been very broad. First year, my whole thing for sure was that I wanted to talk about gender. I did ok, but the theme was super broad. Last year, I talked about the idea of fashion as a means for self-expression versus a means for showing off your wealth. Why do people wear things? That’s why I used the Louis Vuitton print. This year, I like having a very focused theme with it being cult fashion.
What are you looking forward to the most about MODA Nouveau? My parents will be here for first time with my brother, and they've only come to Chicago once or twice, so it will be cool to see them here, especially in the spring. That's what I'm looking forward to. I gotta make sure I get the tickets!
Do you think there is added pressure due to the show finally being in person again? I’m sure there is, but I’m trying to not focus on that. I think I can make it happen in the time I have remaining, so I'm not super worried.
What kind of person embodies your design? People who are open minded. Cult is a very interesting word because it has been historically used to oppress groups of people. If I was being very politically correct, I would use the term new religious movement. People who were inspired by, or not inspire, people who are accepting of that idea. People have different opinions and thoughts to them, but my models are all great and I'm excited to see the result.
Can you describe some of the silhouettes? The cloak is going to be a statement piece. It's a black cloak, and I'm putting green lace on the back of it in the shape of a cross, and it’s going to be bound by chains to symbolize the oppressive nature of some of these cults. The chains are going to be all along the front of the cloak that I'm holding together with bobby pins. Then I'm going to put trinkets on the chains, and then my male models are going to wear robe type outfits, one of them will probably even be wearing shorts. The clothes are made of velvet, I use velvet a lot, and I’m making 90% of these by hand without a sewing machine. I prefer the accuracy.
