Aly and AJ Michalka, better known by their band name Aly & AJ, are no strangers to touring. The sister singer duo have been performing for audiences since they were young teens opening up for The Cheetah Girls. This September, the pair embarked on the last leg of their biggest tour yet, With Love From, complete with an epic show at the Greek Theatre in their hometown of Los Angeles. It was a grounding moment for them, highlighting how much they've grown but how far they still want to go.
"The Greek show was just absolutely magical," AJ tells Teen Vogue on a phone call a few days after the show. The sisters are chatting from their tour bus two hours before their final performance of the season. "We had a lot more family and friends in the audience, and of course people representing Los Angeles, and that was a big deal for Aly and I."
As its name suggests, this tour focused on their fifth studio album, also titled With Love From, which mixes their pop music roots with the more soulful folk sound they've gravitated towards in more recent years. The title track — which, you guessed it, is also titled “With Love From” — is a gritty recognition of personal faults signed off with love from – in the case of the song – Missouri (which is perhaps a double entendre as it is sung to sound like "misery.”) The theme, though, fits well with an 18-city tour that ended with literal love from their hometown.
Despite the massive L.A. venue, the familiar faces filling the crowd, and the easy access to a nearby closet at home just a few miles away, the getting ready process wasn't much different than a regular show. That is until you looked at the clothing racks and spotted a couple of very special suits from Rosetta Getty. "We were in head-to-toe suede suiting,” AJ tells Teen Vogue. “Aly was in this kind of beautiful camel tan color. I was in all black.” We paired [our suits] with white Merz b. Schwanen shirts underneath. It just felt very much like us but with a little bit of a different twist from the other with love from dates, which I think is important, knowing that the Greek was a hometown specialty show."
For most of the tour, Aly & AJ’s looks were relaxed: Jeans, t-shirts, and "a lot of vintage," says Aly. "Whether that's a vintage blouse that we found in Marfa at a really cool funky shop or a piece that I've hunted online and found," she explains. "We do a lot of repurposing of wearing the same jeans over and over and over again, and it just fits great and feels right to perform in. Same with our boots for this run. We just each took two pairs of boots, and we're just revolving them. So it's a lot of being creative and figuring out new ways to wear something multiple times."
During the first part of the tour, the sister duo gave their band some guidelines on what to wear: Jeans, boots, and t-shirts. They delivered consistently, but the L.A. deserved special treatment, so this time around, they came in all on their own. "I think the boys now know what we're after," Aly says. “For the Greek show, they were in more browns and blacks, so they were matching our color palette. They're really great with us picking and choosing what we think they should wear, and they usually come to the rehearsal space and have a bunch of options for us to go through.”
The approach of finding beauty in simplicity is something Aly & AJ also embrace beyond fashion and tailoring. If their on-stage glam looks easy and effortless, it's because it kind of is. Backstage, they are working with products like Maybelline’s affordable Great Lash mascara and easy curling wands. "AJ is a big Maybelline mascara girl," Aly says. “We have our basic go-tos. We're not really girls who continually try new makeup products and new makeup trends. I've been wearing Charlotte Tilbury Foundation for the last seven years. So that's my go-to. We each have our own makeup kits since we do our hair and makeup on the road.”
For Aly & AJ, style, like music, is always evolving. Each tour brings a greater sense of who they are and what they want to put out. "I think that when you play these songs live over and over and over again, you're bound to become a better artist, a better songwriter, a better storyteller," AJ says. “I do believe that us being out on the road and having toured so much in the last two years has really shaped us and the future music that we'll put out.”
