Fashioning Heritage

Aqilah Zailan founded Studio Gypsied to honour her Javanese heritage and ancestral narratives, reimagining batik into everyday designs

- Nafeesa Saini

Growing up, Aqilah Zailan often felt out of place. “I’ve always felt like I didn’t fit in absolutely anywhere,” she muses. “That feeling of not fitting [in] eventually inspired Studio Gypsied. It became a space where I could thrive, a place where I felt most comfortable. I had to create that space because I didn’t know how else to be in the world.”

This sense of displacement is deeply rooted in her upbringing. As the middle child in a family raising a child with cerebral palsy, Aqilah experienced a unique childhood shaped by both responsibility and resilience. “As the second and first ‘normal’ child, my parents always felt like I was the light bearer, their hopes and dreams,” she reflects. “There’s nothing wrong with that, but it does something to your psyche. My parents raised us without a village, so when my [late] sister had to go to the hospital or had fits at home, there was no one to help my mum but me. It felt like no one could relate to our reality.”

In these trying circumstances, her parents found joy in recounting stories from their past. “They loved telling me stories about their childhood. I guess they were thinking of happier times in their lives,” says Aqilah.

These stories, woven with her rich heritage, later became the foundation of Studio Gypsied. Aqilah vividly remembers her father describing his mother dressed in batik and kebaya, while her mother, who grew up in a traditional Javanese family on Pulau Bukom, brought these cultural legacies to life. “On her birthdays, she [used to] always wear a kebaya,” recalls Aqilah.