After Rihanna dropped her eighth album, “Anti,” in January and radio stations have kept her hit record “Work,” featuring Drake, on repeat, we can’t help but love our bad gal more and more. Currently, the song sits for the 4th week in a row at #1 on Billboard’s Hot 100. I mean, have you seen the two-part music video? One word: hot! In November, she announced the “Anti World Tour” that will start in March and guess what? It’s March! Saturday was the opening show of the tour in Jacksonville, FL, where navy members (aka Rihanna super fans) sold out the Jacksonville arena to see her perform. Fans were flooding Instagram with Riri’s show stopping outfits, choreography, and over the top performance set up.
We all know Rihanna as a multi-faceted celebrity from her music to her style; she’s truly an icon. She has flawlessly covered countless magazines and often works with brands such as Stance and Puma. Word on the street is she has been working on a collaboration with Manolo Blahnik; this should be good. Speaking of, the star stepped out wearing Manolo Blahnik pieces a few times during the performance along with custom pieces made just for her by different designers.
Lights! Camera! Action! Rihanna stepped on stage in a hooded, multi-length jacket designed by Craig Green. Under her jacket she wore a shorts romper designed by Adam Selman, which closes up via Instagram was surely a crowd pleaser when she was working her dance moves including the Dab. My favorite part of this outfit was her Giuseppe Zanotti chap boots. Did you see those things? The boots came up to almost the material of her romper showing about an inch of skin from the front and much more in the back. A matching belt at her waist held the boots up while showing off her tiny waistline. Jacquie Aiche designed custom hoop earrings to pair with this outfit. Aiche also designed jewelry for our Barbadian goddess for her closing outfit which consisted of an oversized brown suit set and laced up corset. You didn’t think Rihanna only had two outfits, right? Nope. Leave it up to Adam Selman to come through again with a custom cat suit. This was no ordinary catsuit. This edgy piece had a zipper front and laces down to the Manolo Blahnik booties. You can never go wrong in all black and –of course — the star proves this in her Armani Prive outfit. She wore an extremely long oversized black cape with hood and sleeves and when she took that off she revealed a stunning black embellished jumpsuit paired with black suede Manolo Blahnik pumps. Our girl Rihanna has style for days!
Briefly, I want to touch on the outstanding production and set up of the performance that was wowing fans all night. Apparently she had a flying bridge? Ok, leave it up to Rihanna to fly from one end of the arena to the other above the fans. That wasn’t all, though. She had a backup team of acrobat dancers and large screens for visuals to enhance her performance — as if it needed any enhancing. Big shout out to the hundreds, maybe thousands of people who played a part in the successful production of the show.
Doesn’t this show sound like it went on for hours and hours? Surprisingly Rihanna’s performance was only 90 minutes, yes an hour and a half for a list of songs and all of those outfit changes. We already knew Rihanna is talented but wow! This was only the beginning of the tour — and fans all over the world will continue to see the star put on an unforgettable show, stay tuned!
See all the photos, taken by Dennis Leupold (Source: Rihanna’s ‘Anti’ Tour Opening Night Photos Revealed!)
