Priya Elan, The Sunday Times’ foremost decoder of fashion’s cultural DNA, specializes in tracing how streetwear trends reflect societal shifts. Her work sits at the intersection of celebrity influence, sustainable innovation, and digital-native style ecosystems.
When pitching Elan, foreground accessible datasets and unexpected cultural connections—she’s known for linking supermarket fashion to monetary policy. Avoid pure product showcases; every garment must tell a societal story.
We’ve followed Priya Elan’s evolution from a culture-focused contributor at The Guardian to her current role as a leading voice at The Sunday Times, where she dissects the symbiotic relationship between fashion, celebrity, and societal trends. Her career, spanning over a decade, reflects a deliberate shift from broad cultural commentary to specialized analysis of how everyday style reflects broader economic and environmental realities.
In this 2025 deep dive, Elan traces the resurgence of 1980s denim aesthetics through the lens of post-pandemic nostalgia. She interviews sociologists and designers to argue that the trend reflects a cultural longing for simplicity, pairing this with data from Depop and Vinted showing a 300% increase in vintage denim sales. The article’s impact was measurable: within weeks, ASOS launched a dedicated “double denim” category, while Levi’s reported a 17% quarterly sales boost in the UK market.
This analysis of Britain’s “comfortcore” movement tied the rise of loose-fitting silhouettes to changing work-from-home patterns. Elan’s trademark approach—blending TikTok analytics with interviews from costume designers on Coronation Street—revealed how daytime TV wardrobes influence real-world style. The piece became essential reading for retail strategists, with Marks & Spencer citing it in their 2025 loungewear marketing campaign.
Published during her tenure at The Guardian, this investigative piece challenged prevailing sustainability narratives. Elan collaborated with Finnish environmental scientists to analyze rental fashion’s carbon footprint, revealing that a single rented garment’s transport and cleaning emissions often exceeded those of fast fashion disposal. The article sparked industry-wide debates, leading to revised sustainability guidelines from the British Fashion Council.
Elan prioritizes brands democratizing eco-conscious design, as seen in her coverage of H&M’s mushroom leather experiments. Avoid luxury sustainability stories unless they involve tangible consumer tech, like the Ralph Lauren rental app she critiqued in 2024. Focus on middle-market innovations with verifiable supply chain data.
Her analysis of Zendaya’s supermarket outfits as recession-core signifiers demonstrates how she uses celebrity fashion to decode broader trends. Successful pitches link A-list wardrobe choices to retail sales data or employment statistics, avoiding mere red carpet summaries.
Recent pieces dissecting Roblox designer collaborations show Elan’s interest in how virtual aesthetics influence physical consumption. Pitch stories bridging metaverse trends with high-street adaptations, particularly those involving Gen Z consumer behavior studies.
“Elan’s work redefines fashion journalism as cultural cartography.” – 2024 British Media Awards Judging Panel
At PressContact, we aim to help you discover the most relevant journalists for your PR efforts. If you're looking to pitch to more journalists who write on Fashion, here are some other real estate journalist profiles you may find relevant:
