Stay & Slay

Interview with maker Ruth Kølle

Photo by Brad McCabe

Erica Faison: How did you become inspired to make stays, and what has driven you to continue this craft amidst your larger calling of healing and plants? 

Ruthie Kølle: I have always been drawn to historical clothing, and I can remember vividly the first time someone laced me up into a corset. I was probably in my early twenties. It felt like a coming home. A remembering. Like a puzzle piece falling into place. That pinpoint in time was a tiny spark that helped me to light the fire of healing shame around the expression of my femininity, sexuality, and body image, which is work I've spent most of my adult life doing. I also grew up around a mother who was an avid seamstress and quilt maker, so I don't remember a time before knowing how to sew.

I only began making stays three or four years ago, because life was just full of other life stuff, like kids and building my herbal and bodywork business. I guess you could say it's pure passion that drives me to continue this craft. Passion for reconnecting with slower, more mindful life ways, passion for the pursuit of wonder and enchantment, passion for reconnecting with our beautiful bodies, and a passion for the empowerment of women. These are common threads you can find in all of the work I do, whether it's herbal, bodywork, or sewing stays, and so I try to balance my life in a way that allows me the time and space to indulge all of my creative endeavors. 

Ruthie: As far as bodywork is concerned, when someone gets on my table and trusts me enough to give me their hurting body for an hour, that alone is an act of empowerment for the client. They've made the decision to give their body what it needs and sought me out to create the time and space for them to heal. Sometimes it's not even about pulled muscles or back spasms. Sometimes the person just needs to feel heard for an hour or be in a space where they feel safe and held without judgement. One of my biggest pet peeves is when someone on my table apologizes for some part of their body that they deem "undesirable." I've heard it from women as well as men, and it breaks my heart. 

A big part of my approach to herbalism is about empowering people to have more agency over their own health, as well as cultivating a connection with the plants and seeing themselves as an active thread in the greater web of nature. It's often said that herbalism is first and foremost "the people's medicine," because it is meant to be accessible to everyone. There is no corporate entity that can stop you from creating medicine from your own earthspace. Modern medicine certainly has its place, and thank goodness for it, but with its advent, we were effectively cut off from a lot of our ancestral knowledge surrounding plants and working with them to support our health and vitality.

I also derive a lot of spiritual fulfillment from plants, which I believe is a right that we have largely institutionalized. As someone who was raised in a minister's household, there is something about the revelry in the resurrection of nature that speaks to me in a way that no religious rite within the four walls of the Christian mythology could. It feels like a re-wilding, a re-courting, a re-spelling of myself to the rhythm of nature that can't be contained or defined by any whitewashed building made by human hands. There are no monetary tithes or offerings required, just an open, willing heart, and there is no gatekeeper to say that you're not already "enough." Part of my mission as an herbalist is to guide people back to these ways of being.

I see the making and wearing of stays and corsets experiencing a big renaissance. A lot of women are finding ways to say no to fast fashion, reconnect with their bodies, and express themselves. This to me feels like a radical act, given the narrative we are fed as women of societal beauty standards and what big clothing companies decide is on trend.