Cover Ezzati Amira in her Kuala Lumpur studio. (Photography: Fady Younis)
Ezzati Amira in her Kuala Lumpur studio. (Photography: Fady Younis)
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Ezzati Amira has never gone away, but a triumphant Kuala Lumpur Fashion Week 2025 show heralded the arrival of a newer, more complete showing from the designer and her brand
Under the bright lights and frigid air-conditioning blast of Kuala Lumpur Fashion Week 2025, a star was very firmly re-born. Twenty looks came down the runway, a lineup of sophisticated utilitarianism and modern suiting in a controlled, calming palette of olive greens, warm neutrals, and judicious, enlivening pops of red. It was a feast of textures: slippery hammered satin held together with delicate ladder lace; raw-hemmed knife pleats billowing around structured waistbands; micropleats colliding with organza and captivatingly long, hair-like tassels. What was the one thread tying all of these together?
It was Ezzati Amira, of course, the designer whose return to the KLFW runway created one of the week’s biggest and most joyful moments.
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Above A standout look at the Ezzati Amira show at Kuala Lumpur Fashion Week 2025
A standout look at the Ezzati Amira show at Kuala Lumpur Fashion Week 2025
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Not that Ezzati had gone away, by any means—in the last few years she’s been quietly refinding her creative centre, collaborating with other brands and platforms, creating beautiful bespoke pieces for private clients. (And, of course, getting married—at the end of 2024, Ezzati held an immaculately aesthetic wedding in Genting.) But there’s been a distinct gap in the market for women looking for elegant but interesting ready-to-wear pieces, pieces that are unmistakably fashionable but undeniably wearable, pieces that make a statement but can be worn and reworn in a multitude of ways.
It was a gap only Ezzati could fill, and she couldn’t do it until she was ready. “I was just designing collection after another collection after another collection,” she told us from her Kuala Lumpur studio. “To be honest, the pandemic forced me to stop. And then when I tengok balik everything, I felt: What was I doing with my collections? This is not me. I looked at my designs and felt: I like this, I know that it will sell, but it's not something that I would wear. My mind wasn’t in the right state. You know fashion time, it’s like a rat race, it moves too fast.”
Above Ezzati Amira’s popular bridal range
Above Behind the scenes at her Kuala Lumpur studio
Ezzati Amira’s popular bridal range
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So Ezzati took herself out of that race, slowing down, focusing on beautiful bridal and Raya looks, waiting for her creativity to crystalise into something she knew to be intrinsically her. There was never any doubt that she would return to ready-to-wear, but she needed to do it on her own terms. “Ready-to-wear is what I love, to be honest, it’s my forte. I wanted to do something that is practical and sustainable as well. I found a direction again, and found myself again. I needed to find the balance in life.”
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That balance has demonstrated itself in a self-assured, instantly covetable collection that bears all the Ezzati hallmarks: oversized tailoring, a contrast in textures, and an instinctive understanding of what women want. The pieces will feel familiar for other reasons too: the designer has brought back distinctive silhouette from her past collections, casting them in new fabrics and colours. “I wanted to re-innovate and re-invent something from the past seasons, but make it in different materials. I realised where before I was using jacquards, heavier textiles, now I’ve put more thought into the Malaysian weather, and what people want to wear. Because that changes. With this collection, we’ve used more cotton, viscose and rayon, Tencel—fabrics that are soothing and comfortable.”
There are standout looks, of course—the vibrant red micro-pleated cocoon dress that Scha Alyahya has already worn comes to mind—but the collection has also been designed intentionally to be mixed and matched in endless combinations. “Even when I do bridal wear, I like to design the pieces so they can be worn again,” Ezzati says. “It’s more practical that way, to be able to wear the pieces again after the wedding. With this ready-to-wear collection, I didn’t confine myself to the traditional fashion seasons like I did before, where you could tell this is fall/winter, this is spring/summer. I designed this collection with more balance, specifically for Malaysians. You can wear it throughout the whole year. You can wear it again and again.”
Above Shoes from Ezzati Amira’s latest collection, bearing the thematic tassels
Shoes from Ezzati Amira’s latest collection, bearing the thematic tassels
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After years of requests, Ezzati has also finally introduced menswear into her work, starting with three looks that are already topping her pre-order list. It was a natural evolution for the designer and her comfort with strong shapes and relaxed suiting (and a personal penchant for wearing menswear). “I would wear the menswear from this collection,” she laughs. She’s obviously not the only one—even before production had kicked in for the KLFW 2025 collection, the pre-orders had started rolling in. Then there’s the accessories: poofy pouches adorned with long, swinging tassels that looked for all like chopped off ponytails, and not by accident.
“Every time I want to feel alive again, I will chop off my hair from super long to super short,” Ezzati says. “And when they cut it, they always ikat first the hair right? I used to keep the chopped off ponytail, until one day my mum found it and was like, ‘What the hell is this?’
I had the idea that this is like a representation of myself. How I translate my emotion into a feeling of rebirth. So that’s what I did for this collection. In a way, it’s a combination of the past, present, future. From my past collections into the contemporary present; then you can wear it into the future, for longlasting design.”
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Because beyond the excitement of new clothes, Ezzati Amira’s return to ready-to-wear is a sign of welcome change for Malaysia’s small but burgeoning fashion scene. It’s a sign that designers can take time off, and still remain relevant and desirable; that they can conduct their business on their own terms, without succumbing to the lure of cheap fabrication and mass production. “Malaysian designers, we want to produce good, long-lasting products,” she says. “We want to be sustainable. So it’s great that customers are able to recognise that, and are also willing to pay a price that reflects the quality.”
It’s a sign that we can, in our tropical climate, with our multitude of festivals, and 90 per cent humidity, create the fashion timeline and ecosystem that works for us. “In a way, this collection is a visual journey of the evolution of the brand,” Ezzati says. We’re so happy to be here in the middle with her.
