Can a dress have an aura? Arouge Salim thinks so

Name: Arouge Salim

Age: 30

Profession: Textile and fashion designer

From: Glasgow, Scotland

Current location: New York

Why you should know her: If you spend enough time on fashion Instagram, chances are that Salim’s exuberant, colour-drenched, swirling garments have already stopped you mid-scroll. The New York-based designer creates fantastical knitwear under her eponymous label Arouge that envelops the body in spirals, ripples, and ridges that seem alive. After earning her BFA in Textiles from the Glasgow School of Art, Salim moved across the pond for an MFA at Parsons, where her capstone thesis project, ‘3 6 9’, explored the idea of making invisible energy tangible through knitwear. The collection has since been featured on platforms like 1Granary and Diet Paratha. “I want my brand to be super fun,” she says.

She’s not a fashion nerd: “I’ve wanted to do fashion since I was really young, but I wasn’t really into fashion culture in the way where you’re super into certain designers. When I saw runways, I’d look at the materials and think, ‘Oh my god, how did they make that?’ Which is why I did textiles. I specialised in embroidery in my BFA and then injured my wrist from doing too much of it, so I decided to do knitwear for my Master’s. Every time I would make my textiles, I’d put them on the body—and knitwear on the body just looks amazing. I also had a really good mentor who has a fashion brand, so eventually I went all in with fashion.”

Why her debut collection is called ‘3 6 9’: “I’m really into the codes of the universe, and my work tries to show the things we can’t see—energy, frequency, vibration. That’s what ‘3 6 9’ is for me. It started when I was a TA in Parsons teaching ‘Intro to Fashion’. In the first class, I asked people what fashion meant to them, which made me think about what fashion to me is. You know when you wear something really nice and your energy changes? I thought, obviously clothes have some kind of power, some energy field. What if I could see that energy? What if I could create garments that represented an aura, and you could see how something makes you feel?”

She’s allergic to mood boards: “I’m not big on research and I don’t do mood boards—it makes me feel limited. My process is just completely letting go. I start with textiles. I think about energy, what colours I like together, and then I just put it on the mannequin and let the textile do what it wants to do. I use wool, cashmere, a little bit of silk and cotton, sometimes mohair, to get the gradient. If I think about the final outcome, I won’t allow myself to experiment. So, I just drape on the mannequin, and the more I’ve done it, the more I’ve developed my way of working. It took me two years to develop the technique—how I place the fabric so it really stretches and holds its shape.”

The best advice she’s ever received... “came from my mentor Gabby [Gabriel Asfour], one of the founders of threeASFOUR. He really pushed me to let go, not think of the final result, and just trust myself. Usually in fashion school, you have the final sketch and you work towards that, but I’m not really a sketchbook or planning person. It was discovering this other way to create. I realised fashion could be spiritual; it didn’t have to be this materialistic thing. Once I started to create that way, everything changed.”

The first garment she ever made: “It was in art class in high school. Usually, it’s just sketching or painting, but for some reason they let us do fashion. I remember I made a skirt that was inspired by the beach. I used to be a really bad student—I was a naughty kid in school—so when I made it at home and I brought it in, my teacher did not believe me. I didn’t get any grades for that because she genuinely was like, ‘There’s no way you made that.’”

The last time she had a creative block: “I recently had a 9-to-5 job in the knitwear department at Alexander Wang, where I did mock-ups, mood boards, research—everything I don’t do in my practice. I learned so much, but I wasn’t creating for two months. I’d come home after six and still have to knit and finish my garments for my ready-to-wear. I’d be tired on the subway and just gaslight myself: ‘You’re not tired, just go home and knit until you fall asleep.’ I thought, I obviously can’t do this job, but I need money. Maybe this is a test from the universe: you can’t create, so just quit and then whatever happens, happens. I was like, as long as I have enough money to eat and I can make something I’ll be okay. I quit my job to focus on Arouge and literally the next day everything blew up when Diet Paratha shared my work. I got so many orders—it was crazy. So, I was like, okay, the creative block was this job.”

On the Iris van Herpen and Issey Miyake comparisons: “I’m a super private person; I don’t really like people knowing anything about me. The comments are so sweet, but I don’t want to let it get to my head. I realised I need to distance myself from it, because I don’t want to create something that I think people will like, or because people think I’m a certain kind of designer or feel like I should become this person.”

Why ready-to-wear is next: “The dresses from my debut collection take over a month to make, so they’re very expensive and not accessible to everyone. I take custom orders for private clients. I’d get all these inquiries and people would be like, ‘Sorry, it’s out of my budget.’ I wanted to create some ready-to-wear that wouldn’t take a month and wasn’t as expensive so more people would be able to enjoy my art and support me. It’ll be tops and skirts you can wear every day, released in drops just so I can manage it easily.”

She’s only worn her own design once: “I have no personal style. I literally just wear a T-shirt and jeans. The only time I really wore something I made was on my 30th birthday in July, but I didn’t leave the house. It was this pink piece that I haven’t shown yet, but it’s one of my favourite things I’ve ever made. I can’t wait to show it.”

Who she’d love to see Arouge on: “I would love to dress SZA. I feel like she would look so good in it and it’s so whimsical—kind of like her vibe.”