They’re just so fresh and so clean. Meet the designer who makes them.
Whatever problems there may have been at the first show of Outkast's reunion tour in April, at least one marvelous thing went unnoticed: Big Boi's outfit.
For the past handful of summers, Big Boi has toured festivals as a solo act. And since 2010, he's had a stage uniform: a long field shirt with two front pockets, paired with shorts, rendered in durable black, brown, or camo cotton. For Outkast's first show in 8 years, the look had been re-cast, as a quilted riot of brown, green, and white fabric, with red piping and splashes of desert camo.
The wardrobe shift said a lot without having to say much at all — as part of Outkast, Big Boi would remain his own entity, but he'd bring color, and life, to the partnership.
Big Boi's Coachella look was designed by Dr. Romanelli, a L.A.-based designer who specializes in limited-run, personalized gear. Since that first show, Romanelli's made Big Boi a bunch of stage looks, like this space-inspired one for Big Guava in Tampa:
Each outfit comes together in just a couple of days, Romanelli said. "On Monday, I'll cut it. My guy sews it Wednesday and Thursday and then we rush to FedEx it to Big Boi for Friday to make the show. It's been hectic. He's letting me freestyle. To me, that the ultimate creative opportunity for a designer. To be able to just run with ideas."
The Pancake Epidemic
For Coachella, Big Boi asked Romanelli for an outfit inspired by daredevil Evel Knievel.
David Ashdown / Hulton Archive
The outfits also incorporate scraps from military clothing, a nod to Big Boi's "General Patton" nickname and, maybe, his father's military service.
"The first two outfits I did were kind of Evel Knievel, with a military element infused.
So they felt like U.S.A., stars and stripes, but also camo and mysterious," Romanelli said. "There's this company Alpha Industries, a United States company that's been making military gear forever, they've been sending me some specific requests."
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