EQL x RAH (Atilia Haron) is a four-piece capsule made with Atilia Haron, the Malaysian singer and certified yoga teacher who has taught a free community yoga class in KLCC Park for over twelve years. Two colourways: Lava, light support, for open movement; Blue Grey, high support and longline, for the long sessions. She tried the full EQL range and chose both herself, on colour and on fit. Every piece carries the RAH by Atilia mark, and all four are made in EQL's 75% recycled nylon with UPF 50+ sun protection and squat-proof opacity.
We didn't look for a face
We looked for someone who had already done the work.
For over twelve years, most Saturday mornings, Atilia has rolled out a mat in KLCC Park and taught yoga to whoever turned up. No fee. No membership. No registration. You bring a mat, you arrive at 7:30, and that is the entire barrier to entry. She calls them her karma classes.
She is also a singer who has performed at the World Economic Forum in Davos and at the US-ASEAN Summit, sung the national anthem at Formula 1, and starred in P. Ramlee The Musical. She still shows up at 7:30 in the morning for a class that pays her nothing.
No matter how tired I am, I still go. Even if one false eyelash is still on my face.
She started at thirty
Atilia did not come to yoga as an athlete. She came to it as a working singer who could not breathe properly on stage, carrying chronic back pain and the wear of an unhealthy touring life. She gave herself a yoga class for her thirtieth birthday.
By her own account, that first class was a disappointment.
She went back anyway. Twenty years later she is an RYT-200 certified teacher and an Ashtanga practitioner, usually finished with her own practice before 6:45 in the morning. She teaches out of Prahara Studio in Mutiara Damansara. In 2018, Yoga Journal Singapore named her Yogi of the Year, recognising her role in opening the practice to Malaysians regardless of race and religion.
We keep returning to the going-back. Most people who abandon a practice do not stop because it was too hard. They stop because the first session was disappointing and nobody told them that was normal.
Lava
Light support, and the half of the capsule built for open movement. A deep V neckline, thin adjustable straps and a racerback, with removable padding, over high-waisted leggings that stay smooth through the waist and hip with no dig at the band.
It is for the mornings you want to feel unheld. Flow, stretch, breath, nothing gripping. In a climate where the only sensible hour to train outdoors is before eight, it is also the lighter thing to put on at 6:45 when you are still deciding whether you are awake.
Lava is not a shy colour, and it is not meant to be. It reads across a room, on a rooftop, and in the middle of a class of forty people in black.
Blue Grey
High support, and longline to the hip. A strappy cross-back over contoured high-waisted leggings, with removable padding, built to hold through inversions and long held sequences without asking you to think about it once.
The longer line does something else worth naming: it covers, so it works as modest practice wear without a separate layer over the top. More coverage in a tropical climate only works if the fabric performs, which is the whole reason this one is cut in the same recycled nylon as the rest.
The mark
RAH is her initials. The mark sits on the back of the bra and low on the left leg, small, in white. It is the only branding on the piece.
The fabric, in all four pieces
- 75% recycled nylon and 25% spandex, the nylon reclaimed from fishing nets and ocean-bound plastic waste, at up to 80% lower CO2 than virgin nylon
- UPF 50+ sun protection, blocking over 98% of UV, which matters for an outdoor class at 7:30 in the morning
- Fully opaque under squat-test conditions
- 4-way stretch with high recovery
- Moisture-wicking, drying up to three times faster than standard cotton
- Anti-pilling compact yarns that hold their look through hundreds of wash cycles
Prahara
When she is not in the park, she is at Prahara Studio in Mutiara Damansara. It is her own studio, and the timetable runs wider than yoga alone: vinyasa, yin, basic flow and the deepening classes, mat Pilates, FlyJam with Mimifly. Doors from seven in the morning, which tells you who it is built for.
What it is really organised around is the same thing the park class is organised around. Prahara runs its own free community sessions, workshops and fundraising classes, and it co-organised Rise & Revive with Indah Water Konsortium in May, where the ticket proceeds went to two organisations supporting people with disabilities.
Timetable at praharastudio.com, and the studio is on Instagram at @praharastudio.
This is where the collection actually gets worn. Not on a rooftop, most of the time. In a room like this one, on an ordinary morning, with someone's hand on your hip telling you the shape is nearly right.
The more they think they're not flexible, the more they should come.
The class is still free
It runs most Saturday mornings at 7:30 in KLCC Park, at Gazebo 5 in front of ExxonMobil Tower. There is no registration and no fee. Bring a mat. It is cancelled only for bad weather.
It ran for over twelve years before this collection existed, and it will run after it. That part is not a campaign.