Budiey
When Ella, Malaysia’s reigning Rock n Roll Queen, decided to hire Jiman Casablancas of Tarik Jeans as stylist for her much anticipated return to the stage with Ella Unplugged in KL, there were three things that were made clear by parties from the very beginning – (i) everything needs to be elevated.
In short, it need to kick ass (ii) that she would be layered in mostly black items, and (iii) that she would only wear pieces by homegrown designers.
Armed with his punk aesthetics, Jiman rallied five of Malaysia’s best designers, Kit Woo, Ezzati Amira, Syomirizwa Gupta, Joe Chia and Afiq M to help him with the looks for the three nights sold-out concert held at Istana Budaya, Kuala Lumpur recently.
Segmented into three parts, PEACE – Unplugged, LOVE – Traditional and RINDU – Rock n Roll, the pieces runs the gamut from an opera coat, Vivienne Westwood’s Victorian-inspired Kebayas, an oversized puff warrior jacket, a Kimono top and lots of glittered fringes for a jolt of visual effect.
Local jeweler, Behati provided the finishing touches with their unique brooches. As much as Ella is known to belt out her rich repertoire of karaoke-friendly hits from back in the 80s when she was the frontwoman of Ella & The Boys, and setting the stage on fire with her antics, this time around, there was the runway worthy fashion to look forward to.
To assist him, Jiman has roped in Malaysia’s make-up maestro, Khir Khalid, notorious for his dramatic editorial work. Ella’s transition from a T-shirt and jeans female rocker into a hijab-wearing glam rock goddess was made complete with the genius of Naz, the hijab stylist who customised each hijab to complement the looks decided by Jiman.
Long live the Queen!
Photos by Shafiq Shahar (@shafiqshahar) and Brader Nizam.
