Hometown Boy Jordan Dalah

So many Central Saint Martins greats—Alexander McQueen, Phoebe Philo, John Galliano—were born from the school's legendary MA fashion course. So, it's refreshing to hear that Australian designer Jordan Dalah, tempted at first after his BA, decided against returning. "Sometimes education feels like a protective bubble," he says. "But you learn so much, if not more, on the job!"

It was a smart move. Dalah's graduate collection of leather corsets, Renaissance-inspired chaperon hats, and various voluminous, padded pieces immediately caught the industry's eye. His namesake brand, launched in 2018, has been featured in multiple international editions of Vogue, 10 Magazine, Another Magazine, and The New York Times. It's also been worn by the likes of Solange Knowles, FKA twigs, Rita Ora, and Saoirse Ronan.

Dalah broke the mold again when he moved back home to Sydney a year later. "I have built my world here and really enjoy being an independent designer in Australia," he adds. "I feel supported, for the most part, because I am doing something different." He admits he still needs the validation of London's fashion scene but finds it possible to base himself ten thousand miles away thanks to globalization and Covid-era flexible work. "I am uninterrupted but still connected with the world and it feels great."

Dalah's move felt particularly significant at the brand's first runway show at Australia Fashion Week in 2021. His Spring 2022 collection of forty-three looks announced his arrival as a designer and his conscious uncoupling from the cult of CSM. While his graduate collection successfully marked the label's signatures—playful Tudor and Renaissance references, corsetry, and puffed Juliet shoulders aplenty—it was edgy in its packaging. (This is to be expected from a designer fresh out of a London art school, where 'fashion' comes with a side of irreverence.) Since then, he has both polished things up—think more luxurious fabrics, calmer palettes—and pared things back through his casting, makeup, and hair choices. Even little details, like the specific facial expressions in campaign shots, were carefully considered. "Spring 2022 was all about defining my signature silhouette, to show how nuanced it can be," he explains. "Alongside the show's music, set, and casting, the OTT became more everyday."

Dalah's idea of 'everyday,' however, comes up against a constant obstacle in the industry's need for categorization: Is he making ready-to-wear or couture? It's flawed to think exhibitionism opposes wearability—a word journalists love to throw around at shows—when it's so hard to make waves without theatrics in such an oversaturated market. "Part of me feels like I fuel the fire for this conversation because I am the one always emphasizing and reiterating that it is ready-to-wear," he says. "Perhaps telling the press this over and over again paints a kind of insecurity about what I am doing, but there is absolutely none."

People liken Dalah to Rei Kawakubo (most often Comme des Garçons's Spring 1997 "lumps and bumps" collection), which is of course a huge compliment, but a better comparison might be Jonathan Anderson, the creative director of Loewe. In his hands, a floor-skimming handkerchief-hemmed dress can look low-key Ibiza boho worn solo and totally revolutionary when cinched with one of the brand's winged waist belts. Dalah's approach is convertible, too: His larger-than-life bustles, pillowy duvet bows, three-dimensional ruffs, and hooped hemlines add drama, but they can also be removed to "deflate" the silhouette. Basically, they're as avant garde as you want them to be—it's all in the styling. And how liberating for women: to wear clothes that don't invite analysis of the body, that can hide or highlight.

Clearly, what Dalah is creating is ready-to-wear. It's currently being sold on Farfetch via an independent Italian boutique. (Sadly, Dalah's first stockist, Opening Ceremony, shut its stores during the pandemic). E-commerce is just as much part of the conversation, of course, but when asked what the future of his label looks like and how he intends to balance commercial visibility with authenticity, Dalah confesses he's not sure: "I'm working it out. But what I do know is that when I love the clothes that I make, I feel confident and connected to what I do. I want to build on my own personal codes and maybe even diversify to fragrance when the time feels right."

Dalah doesn't have the blind, uncompromising confidence that so many designers use as momentum to build a brand straight out of school. He's quietly capable, humble even. "It's a juggling act and I am nowhere close to mastering it," he says. "In fact, I am at the beginning of understanding how I can be a designer for the long haul without compromising my work. Right now I am using my platform, which I feel grateful to have, to have fun. The rest will happen in time."

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