An entrepreneur, author, speaker, musician, fashion designer, and philanthropist, it seems there’s nothing that Aquila Farrell can’t do. Born in Toronto and currently living in Oakland, Farrell is also a vocalist and pianist who has lately devoted herself to opera, specifically San Francisco Opera.
Indeed, a board member of the San Francisco Opera Guild since 2021, Farrell will be walking the red carpet at City Hall at the annual SFO Ball on Sept. 5 before attending the opening night performance of Verdi’s acclaimed masterpiece, Rigoletto. Conducted by Music Director Eun Sun Kim at the War Memorial Opera House, the performance and gala promise to be next level.
“As a musician myself, I began by attending events, [as well as] the opera and meeting a lot of the community, because I have a contribution to make,” Farrell explained. “Opera, to me, means telling a story with music. And it combines everything that I love — storytelling, design, creativity, the costuming, all of the hard work behind the scenes.”
Of course, over the years the Opera Ball has taken aesthetic inspiration from what’s happening onstage. With Rigoletto, which runs for eight performances and features Amartuvshin Enkhbat in the title role, one wonders if there will be clown or jester attire at the gala. Laughing, Farrell, who founded the colorful, purpose-driven women’s fashion label Maraval, said no, but “everyone will be wearing jewel tones,” meaning there will be lots of amethyst purples, sapphire blues, and ruby reds.
A fashion career, however, wasn’t where Farrell expected herself to be: She graduated with a degree in biochemistry from the University of Toronto in 2007 and earned a master’s degree in Public Health from the University of Liverpool in 2012. The dynamo explained that she planned to pursue a career in elder care and medicine, but felt a calling to switch to fashion to “power my charitable efforts.”
Thus Farrell took a major career leap, first becoming a digital content creator, working with Fortune 500 brands including Google, Amazon Music, and Vaseline, before starting Maraval, now headquartered in Oakland. A passion for design ran in the family: Her mother had been a dressmaker with an atelier in Canada, and Farrell said she now honors her mother in her designs by transforming photographs from her travels into unique, eye-catching fabrics for the brand.
Having been featured in Forbes, Essence and POPSUGAR, Farrell decided to join the Guild because she and the organization are driven by a shared mission: blending cultural legacy with community impact, all the while doing it with style. She’s also working on Project Lydia, an initiative to build a clothing manufacturing hub in the Bay Area that equips individuals with sewing skills and sustainable career paths.
To Farrell, fashion plays a meaningful role in storytelling: “Fashion is very visual — it’s another form of art,” she said. “You’re seeing everything. There’s textures, there’s the feeling of the fabric. With the Opera Ball, fashion is what it’s all about: reflecting and telling the story. It’s also about supporting designers — local, national and, international — and bringing them on the scene in San Francisco.”
Which begs the question: What will Farrell be wearing to one of San Francisco’s most coveted galas? “I cannot wait,” she said. “My gown is on the way. It’s from a [Cameroonian] designer and it’s extravagant. It’s a reflection of the grandiose event I’ll be attending.”
