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"If everything goes all to hell and all machines are destroyed and there’s mass chaos and blood in the streets and all that sort of thing, well then of course you know my clothing is the only clothing to wear."  --Aly Wolff-Mills

Neon vinyl corset, black bra, international distress orange techno skirt.
Aly Wolff-Mills: There’s definitely a certain frivolity to a lot of what I make, that is kind of a fun aspect, which is why I kind of like the silliness of the title that I came up with, Post Fallout Glam, just because it certainly doesn’t take itself very seriously, and I mean, honestly, tromping around in a corset is not necessarily something that one does on a day-to-day basis.

FF: And where does the fallout reference come from?

Aly Wolff-Mills: Well, that comes from just kind of the way a lot of my stuff links to sort of the post-apocalyptic kind of visions of things. It’s like the Mad Max world; the concept that I use a lot of industrial materials, going to the hardware store to pick out things to make clothing out of, evokes a different tradition with clothing. And certainly it is non-traditional and not necessarily futuristic. Just because the things that I tend to use are kind of junk.


© 1982 Warner Bros.

Feather shoulder wings, black bra, hardware store corset, snowflake skirt.

FF: How do you conceive that in tandem with the sort of 1890's corset styles that you also incorporate into your work?

Aly Wolff-Mills: Well that’s kind of just -- oh let’s see -- it’s one of the more fun aspects of it. I really do enjoy corsetry a lot, and I like the historical aspect of it. But I like also the fact that I remake it and change the corset from what it used to be into something completely new. Because the tradition of the corset is basically as an undergarment. It’s extremely confining.


Corset adapted from authentic 1890's pattern, busk fastenings.

And as far as the women who wore them, they basically broke their bodies to make them a different sort of shape. And with me it’s like I’ve kind of taken the negative aspects of what corsetry and what that confinement means, and what that means as far as womens’ history goes. And I’ve taken that and completely converted it and pretty much perverted it into a completely different kind of expression of what it means to be female and what it means to have that body shape.


Silver corset, sequined bra, tutu.

Now it’s underwear worn on the outside, it’s underwear that is outerwear, and it’s dangerous and it still does some of the same things that it did before ...

FF: It doesn’t disfigure you.

Aly Wolff-Mills: Right. Well, that’s debatable. It’s just so blatantly obvious that that’s what it is. There’s nothing there. It’s just very blatant. It’s a blatant statement of this is how I’m changing myself; this is what I’m going to look like -- a statement of kind of an ideal female figure, except instead of hiding it under clothing and pretending that there’s nothing there, it’s kind of an obvious statement.

FF: And what does glam mean to you?

Aly Wolff-Mills: Well it goes along with glamorous. It’s sort of -- it’s the sparkly bit, the feathery bit that I put on everything. Anything that’s shiny that I’d like to attach on it. It also links to the fact that a lot of this stuff is clubbing clothing, and as clubbing clothing I think the goal is clubbing, at least for me is to be as absolutely outrageous and over the top and as fluffy and gorgeous as possible. So it all kind of links back to that; the idea that everything is just taking an image and taking a concept of what is fabulous and taking it up a notch.


Feather dog collar.