Ecca Vandal on Chopova Lowena, Trusting Your Collaborators and Adoring Bjork

Words: Gina Tonic | Photography: Lewis Vorn | Hair: Gaia Bezbradica | Makeup: Georgia Hope | Styling: Evy Cornelie | Set Design: Mick O’Connell | Nails: BhamBNails

Make it stand out

With her bright blue hair and distinctive style, Ecca Vandal could easily be a customisable video game character - one you’d dress by dropping and dragging different Chopova Lowena skirts across a screen to best suit your mood. The carefully curated world that makes up the Vandal aesthetic - instantly recognisable on stage, in music videos and on the front row at London Fashion Week - isn’t an album “era” gimmick however, but genuinely reflective of Ecca’s personal style ethos.

“There was a very real thing about showing myself having fun with dressing up, because that's how I dress every day. I just want to show that fashion is fun, you know,” Ecca - real name Rebecca - tells me over Zoom from her Milan hotel room, the day before the first night of her 2026 tour. “I wanted to be purposeful in showing that I like to play with colour, I like to play with shapes. I want something that I put on to just feel like me, too - I need to feel like myself. Sometimes I'll put on the most amazing outfit before a show, and I'll take it off two minutes before I'm about to get on stage because something feels uncomfortable and I don't feel like myself.”

For someone who is so particular and individual with their creative vision, it might come as a surprise that collaboration has been crucial to ensuring that the Ecca Vandal project stays on track. Her creative director, Evy Cornelie, also styles her, and that’s not to mention Richie Buxton, her musical (and life) partner, who is also a part of Ecca Vandal, alongside Rebecca. 

Throughout our conversation, she not only sings his praises, but highlights the importance of artistic collaboration in general. “I love finding people that I can trust - not just people with similar tastes, but also those who have different tastes that can inspire me and show me new things.”

She pauses, considering her next choice of words, as precise in our interview as she is in every aspect of her work. “It helps me in the creative process because I know that I can go off and work on a different part of the creative process, whether it's the live show or whether it's a photo shoot or whether it's the studio sound, and I have other collaborators that can kind of help keep things moving in the right direction. I'm so much a part of every single aspect of the project creatively that it's a lot to keep going, so it's nice to have people that I can lean on, especially Richie.”

“It feels amazing to have people resonating with the music. That was always the goal for me, finding a community around the project that actually resonated with it because they liked it, not because a label told them to be into it or that it was cool.”

She goes on to explain his role in the project, which is epitomised by the word partner. They wrote the album themselves, played all the instruments, mixed it together and went on to create all the visuals as a duo as well. One music video that the pair produced in particular would go on to bring two of their most significant collaborators into the fold: the designers Emma Chopova and Laura Lowena, who are behind the eponymous brand that has become almost synonymous with Ecca Vandal’s album aesthetic.

“I was discovering what electronic music and alternative music was doing and I remember being so drawn to how they can be alternative, sitting on the outside, acting against the grain, but actually still hitting the mainstream. I was just so fascinated by how accessible their music was whilst not compromising on going against the grain.”

“We shot a music video at the very last minute at a rehearsal one day - my drummer and my bass player were like, ‘We’re just going to shoot it now’. I'm like, "Oh, I don't have anything to wear’, but I borrowed a Chopova Lowena skirt from a friend, and it was in the car. So I grabbed their skirt, put it on, and filmed this video for DANCE IN DEBT,” she laughs. “They saw it and loved the music video, loved the music, and they said, ‘If you're ever in London, let us know.’”

Luckily, Ecca was planning a trip to England the following February, on tour with Limp Bizkit. As soon as she touched down in London, she headed to the Chopova Lowena studio, and her creative partnership with the brand began. The designers dressed her for not just her show at Wembley, but for the entire Limp Bizkit tour. 

It can be intimidating for musicians to cross over into other industries and Ecca tells me that she has never wanted to be in the public eye as much as her peers may choose to. Her social media is stripped back, sharing very little that hasn’t been captured by a professional camera. You won’t catch Ecca recommending foundations or facial cleansers in a front facing video - unless, perhaps, Vogue came knocking. “Vogue’s Vogue,” she admits when I ask if she’d do their Beauty Secrets series. 

In opposition to her visual language, Ecca’s music spans universes. In most of the coverage for her album LOOKING FOR PEOPLE TO UNFOLLOW as well as for her self titled debut, her sound has been defined as “genre defying,” a title that Ecca embraces.

“It's a funny phrase. It's interesting because when Richie and I are in the studio writing, away from scenes, away from the industry, away from anything else that's going on and staying offline, we just write music that excites us, without thinking about where this is going to fit, or trying to find an audience for it.” She continues. “We don't really talk about genres or think, ‘Hey, let's write a rock track or a punk track or hip hop!’ I think that that allowed us to have the freedom and the purity, to write something that meant something to us in that moment.”

“people who are turning up to the shows are there because they want to be, not because they just think they should be a part of a scene or anything. It’s just about art lovers finding art.”

There has been an almost ten year break between the release of the first and second Ecca Vandal albums. In that time, Ecca doubled down on needing her music to feel authentic before putting anything out, and while she worked with multiple producers across LA following the success of her debut, it was only when she returned to the studio with Richie to work without outside influences that they were happy with what they were creating. While other producers had Grammy nominations and many other accolades under their belt, she didn’t feel comfortable with the pop sound that was being pushed on her. 

That isn’t to say that Ecca dislikes pop music - “Pop can be anything. Like Kendrick Lamar was pop at one stage!” - it just wasn’t the genre for her, and many fully produced tracks never made it off the cutting room floor. It’s not that Ecca is a perfectionist per se, but rather she is on a quest to express herself wholly and clearly, and that expression draws upon countless inspirations to get her point across.

Growing up in a Sri Lankan household in Australia, where Ecca enthuses about the close knit music community, she went on to study jazz at the University of Melbourne’s Victorian College of the Arts. Through these experiences, she garnered a really eclectic taste in music. From Billie Holiday to Fugazi, there wasn’t anything that would be skipped in her playlist, but it was discovering Bjork that really changed her perspective on alternative music.

“Friends of mine were showing me Bjork CDs, and you know, Homogenic was one of my favourite Bjork albums.” Ecca expands, “I was discovering what electronic music and alternative music was doing and I remember being so drawn to how they can be alternative, sitting on the outside, acting against the grain, but actually still hitting the mainstream. I was just so fascinated by how accessible their music was whilst not compromising on going against the grain.”

It’s undoubtable that through her clear vision and dedication to her craft, Ecca Vandal has achieved a similar feat. In 2026, Ecca reached more ears than ever while refusing any concessions. As we finish our interview, she reflects on making it into the mainstream.

“It feels amazing to have people resonating with the music. That was always the goal for me, finding a community around the project that actually resonated with it because they liked it, not because a label told them to be into it or that it was cool.” She gushes about her fans, too. “It was really just about people finding it organically - and that's how we did it. We didn't have a label behind us. We didn't have any funding. We never paid for a post, we just wanted people to actually be organically drawn to it, and that's exactly what happened. And I'm so happy that we did it that way because it means that people who are around the project, people who are turning up to the shows, are there because they want to be, not because they just think they should be a part of a scene or anything. It’s just about art lovers finding art.”