Who needs an interior designer when you have the sense of style that made you a winner on RuPaul’s Drag Race?
plants. The inside is lush in a way that makes one not notice the small size. No minimalism here.
Of course, it was Sutan Amrull’s acting ability (and charming real life personality) that also helped him win 2009’s season three of the famous TV competition in his drag persona of Raja. A key step along the way was his work in 2006 on America’s Next Top Model, where he caught the eye of model and producer Tyra Banks, when he appeared on camera dressed like her.
In a sense, it is all about faces—perhaps no surprise for the home of a make-up artist who also studied painting and illustration in college. There are more than a dozen paintings and sketches on one wall, all (but for one of the cat) featuring exotic faces. Even two of the cushions on the sofa carry such portraits. The rest of the apartment is covered with other exotica: a skull (a theme that also shows up in Amrull’s coffee cup and other accessories), a crown (which would be expected in the apartment of a noted drag queen), and a shelf full of high heels (most covered with glitter). And then there is the bed, long enough for his 6’3” body, which has a black backdrop festooned with sparkles that offers a sharp contrast to the patterned and predominately red quilt that covers it.
An artist and performer, Amrull’s sense of style has also been a factor in his development of a list of make-up clients who include Adam Lambert, Pamela Anderson, Tyra Banks and Iman, along with more exotic characters like Dita von Teese, Iggy Azalea and Tommy Joe Ratliff. His talent as a make-up artist is chronicled on his Sutan’s Everything YouTube channel.
Amrull, who was born in Baldwin Park, is of Dutch and Indonesian ancestry. He gives some credit for his sense of style to Indonesia, where he lived for seven years as a child in Jakarta and Bali, a haven for gay culture and art in that Islamic nation. Amrull’s apartment makes clear that drag continues to be only one of his many forms of artistic expression.
These days, his performance career also keeps him moving, with trips as far away as Mexico City and as near as DragCon, the nation’s first drag convention, held in May in downtown Los Angeles. His sense of style is evident in his apartment, a bachelor unit in a small complex on Olive Drive that is hidden from street view by a wave of
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