By Hector Serrano
The Vanguard sits down with Dylan Ali, the Brooklyn-based DJ who performs at New York Fashion Week’s A-list shows. Self-described as a “theater kid” at heart, it is through her DJing and fashion influence that she hopes to blend the two worlds together to create a dynamic, artistic expression.
Who are your favorite kind of designers currently?
I obviously love like Telfar and Shane […] very cool block of designers that are like young and interesting perspective. And it’s refreshing.
You did bring up a lot of like POC designers. And I did read an interview that you did a few months ago, where it was really important for you to kind of marry fashion and music together. Where in that journey do you feel like you are right now?
Fashion is always going to be a part of how like I approach my teaching, any type of music-related anything. Just the theater kid in me lives for the ability to reinvent myself constantly. And also it’s just a way to really just feel like yourself, in an era where, like I feel like individualism is embraced to a degree. But I do think we’ve kind of found a way to like homogenize that through these different like cores and like micro trends. So making sure that I approach that constantly from just like a really expressive and pure way as much as I can, even though we’re always going to have some type of like algorithmic way of thinking. Because we’re always connected to it. Just kind of constantly reminding myself like, “Okay, do this because this is how you want to feel.”
And where do you think it’ll lead you?
I wanna own some type of creative agency at one point like that kind of helps bridge that gap […] DJing is gonna always be there for me. But like, I eventually want to start having kids. And I can’t be like nine months pregnant in the club. So I’m gonna have to like, sit down somewhere and come up with cool ideas that I can make money off of, and I think owning some type of creative agency will allow me to do it. And, hopefully, the connections that I make along the way will make those things, make that chapter easier when it inevitably happens.
How did you end up in this space in particular? What brought you to the DJ booth and kinds of places with these people?
I was just outside in the parties at the shows, just trying to connect with society and figure out who I wanted to be, and how I want to achieve that. And I guess, like a lot of the people that I met in that time frame kind of helped guide me into what I realized I wanted to do. I could generally say just being outside and young.
Like you said earlier, you were a theater kid. How did a theater kid like yourself end up “outside”?
A lot of theater kids do tend to just wanna live life to the fullest. There’s like two. There are two extremes through, like the super duper. I take life super seriously. And then you’re like, “I want to just do anything that makes me happy.” And I think the ability for me to like really know how to work with different types of people, and adapt quickly to certain audiences or different situations, having the constant need to like deepen I think also came from my theater training. There’s always more to know, there’s always something new to discover. I guess, like certain times, unless I’m really curating it like DJing, life can feel like a long improv because you’re constantly just feeding back and forth off of the audience.
For Fashion Week specifically, how do you feel like the after parties and the DJing adds to the idea or event that Fashion Week is?
I think it’s like one of the few moments where everyone from all over is just in the same room at the same time, and those types of moments you feel kind of magical. Because you feel like you’re in a moment in time. You know things are just always changing, especially in the times we’re in now. And whenever you do I guess end up in a situation where you just feel like, “Wow, like this is amazing” those are the times that kind of define people’s experiences in New York.
I want to know, how do you stay true to yourself?
Just being raised to always stay true to myself, like my parents definitely enforced that at a very young age. But, outside of that, I just have seen it in real time like what cheap thrills can do to someone, and I don’t have interest in that. I’m playing things for the long game, like I wanna be able to enjoy working in my sixties cause I love what I do.