Bio
Shokra is founded by creative director and lead designer Russell Barslou. Since its inception, Russell has worked with celebrities, stylists and costume houses in and around the Los Angeles area. His most recent credits include Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Ellen Degeneres and Shania Twain to name a few.
He graduated from FIDM with a degree in Fashion Design and quickly started working in the industry. After years of working successfully for a few manufacturers he started feeling creatively stifled.
Around that time, he started working in the nightclub scene as a dancer/performer. This allowed for the creative freedom to express himself and explore a whole new aesthetic. It was not soon after developing a nightlife persona of his own that he was asked to create costumes for the dancers to promote Mathew Bourne's Swan Lake at the club. This opportunity led him to meet and work with a costume house where he discovered that it was costume design that was more suited to his talent and growth as an artist.
Over the years his androgynous, glamorous, and outrageous stage persona evolved into a character named "Shokra." The name combines the words shock and raw, a title that now represents the awe inspiring creativity of his brand. The word itself is also a nod to the spiritual philosophy of the energies of the body chakras.