Name: Nidhi Srinivasan, who goes by Aira professionally
Age: 23
Profession: Fashion writer and content creator
Location: Chennai, India
Why you should know her: When the Costume Institute’s spring 2027 exhibition, John Galliano: Horizons, was called off following backlash over the decision to honour the designer despite his history of antisemitic remarks, Aira, a Galliano fan, was prompted to create a Galliano retrospective of her own. What started as a personal digital archive led to a Netflix-style site where users can binge their way through every single one of his shows—including runways from his eponymous label and his tenures at Givenchy, Dior, and Maison Margiela—in addition to reviews and show notes. The site has clearly stuck a chord. GallianoFlix has been gaining traction on social media and even scored a mention in Lauren Sherman’s fashion insider-y newsletter, Line Sheet.
Aira also has a Substack called Room Service, where every week she picks a fashion question, goes down a research rabbit hole, and records her findings. “It’s the thread between my Substack, my [Instagram] videos, and GallianoFlix. I’m teaching myself as I go, documenting the process and, hopefully, making it easier for someone else to learn alongside me,” she says.
In addition to fashion, Aira is also a singer-songwriter who has been writing music for the past 11 years. When she’s not working on her music or fashion content, she’s likely playing Street Fighter 6 on her PS5.
How she got here: “My route into fashion has been a little non-linear. I studied Fashion Design in Chennai, but after graduating I ended up spending a couple of years working in beauty marketing before finding my way back to fashion seriously this year.”
A girl who codes: “Over the last few years, I got really into vibe coding and started building little side projects to solve problems I had with my work. GallianoFlix was also one such case. When the show was cancelled, I decided I was going to make my account a sort of a digital exhibit and break down 100-plus shows one by one. I soon realised the process was extremely disorienting, with several tabs open at the same time for reviews, books, and video footage. I used vibe coding as a tool to curate analogue and online sources in one place so I could get on with this insane plan that I had to cover each show on my Instagram and Substack. I created it as a personal study tool, because I wanted to study all his work in one place and wanted to create an organised and fun way to do it for myself.”
Why GallianoFlix: “John Galliano was one of the first designers I was exposed to in college. The way that I see it, some girls find god and some girls find Dior by Galliano. Discovering Galliano is a canon event when you get really into fashion. At some point, you find either Galliano or McQueen, and they completely reset your idea of what a runway show can be. They show you just how far the format can be pushed, how much storytelling, theatre, history, and fantasy can exist within 20 minutes of clothes walking down a runway. And I think that hits particularly hard now, because runway shows have become so much more minimalist.”
On her newfound virality: “I assumed there would be a small group of people who were as nerdy about runway history as I am who would enjoy it. I definitely didn’t expect thousands of people to want the link. More than 34,000 site visits worldwide in three days has been a dream! People who have actually worked with him have sent me personal memories, anecdotes, corrections, better footage, and sources. It’s changed the way I think about GallianoFlix too. It feels much less like me presenting an archive and much more like something that is being built and improved through shared knowledge. Law Roach reached out asking to see the site, Lyas posted about it, and Pat McGrath said she loved it. Having people from the industry whose work I’ve followed for years find and celebrate this little project I built to teach myself fashion was probably the last thing I expected when I put it online.”
Where she stands on GallianoGate: “I wouldn’t describe the work as a redeeming factor, because I think that implies that extraordinary creative work somehow cancels out or compensates for a person’s actions. I don’t think studying someone’s work requires pretending the rest of their history doesn’t exist. I believe difficult histories can be studied too. GallianoFlix doesn’t exist to tell somebody what conclusion they should reach about him. It’s a resource for studying an enormously influential body of fashion work in context. What I was looking forward to almost as much as the exhibition was the dialogue around it.”
On what’s next: “I’m building McQueenFlix, because I had so many messages and comments asking me to make one for Alexander McQueen. McQueen also makes complete sense for this kind of format: there is an enormous amount to study around the storytelling, production, references, casting, technology, controversy, and the relationship he had with Isabella Blow. I built GallianoFlix as a personal study tool, but I’m building McQueenFlix as a public-facing archive. This time, the sourcing is very community-led. I’m already asking people who specialise in McQueen for biographies, academic resources, show-by-show writing, and better footage. Eventually, I’d like to create something like a RunwayFlix, where you could come to one place, choose a designer, and have a pathway through their runway history. I’m especially interested in what that could look like in India. There is such a huge fashion audience in India, and I’d really like to be part of expanding that conversation.”
