Beyond the pale

Imagine watching a Gothic and industrial fashion show. If you picture such an event as a parade of pale faces dressed in black garb, think again.

Tomorrow night, Cambridge's goth-fetish nightclub, ManRay, will host "Fashion Victims: Vamps in Vogue," a runway show that promises to be the furthest thing from a funeral procession.

It will not be just a run-of-the-mill fashion show with models strutting down the catwalk, either.

Featured designer Ashley H. Mattox has spent four months working with Angeldustrial, a collective of artists, musicians, and dancers with industrial-strength creativity who have nailed the presentation of her label's "underworld glamour." Angeldustrial will model eight Aphrodite Asphodel outfits while performing an elegant ballroom-inspired dance, choreographed to playfully challenge the stereotypes of masculinity and femininity, submission and domination.

Inspired by 18th-century aristocracy, the Jazz Age, and the classic American rebel, Mattox describes the Aphrodite Asphodel look as "born in a rock 'n' roll roadbox, raised in a Paris salon, unabashedly nouveau riche, charged with eros and splashed with bourbon . . . all with an industrial edge, of course."

Mattox has traveled back in time, sneaking into the dressing rooms of vaudeville theaters and peeking into the salons of Paris with a notebook, scribbling the most stylish aspects from the past three centuries of fashion history. Her hands bring all of these elements into single outfits, bits of historic fashion pulled together as tightly as the corsets she makes.

The Fashion Victims show also will feature collections from Anita Bhatt, a Providence-based designer who makes clothes under her own brand, Vicious Dollz.

Drawing from anime, fetish, and Gothic influences, Bhatt creates kimonos and corsets fit for a club-hopping geisha girl of the future. She uses all kinds of fabrics, ranging from Chinese silk brocade to perforated neoprene.

Eloni Feliciano, a ManRay promoter and founder of the Miss Gothic Massachusetts pageant, will model pink and black dreadlocks by Lana Guerra, and a bright pink Vicious Dollz dress.

The "Cabaret Militaria" collection comes from Bettysioux, a Providence-based label designed by Jennifer Lyons. It consists of 10 outfits, ranging from campy pink bomber jackets with leopard-print hotpants to black-and-white floor-length gowns.

Lyons, 28, decided to focus on the military as her theme for the Fashion Victims show, for good reason: her father, a major in the US Army Reserves, was recently deployed to Iraq.

She transformed one of her father's old uniforms into an outfit she calls "Mess Hall Madam" by stitching blouse-like shoulders into the camouflage shirt and adorning the chest pockets with black sequins. Lyons strategically incorporated swank-looking pinstriped cotton twill into the military fatigues, and topped off the hat with an elegant feather plume.

Another Bettysioux creation, dubbed "Flight of the Aviator," is a slinky-yet-sporty black gown with white racing stripes along the sides and adjustable straps crossing the open back. Using the pattern from vintage pilot headgear (think Amelia Earhart), Lyons made a stylish aviator cap that's sophisticated enough for a business executive to wear on her day off, yet still soars beyond the radar of common civilian street style; it's cool enough to make any club kid jealous.

"My clothing is meant for people who like to stand out and be unique," said Lyons. "It's not about goth, fetish, or the underground. It's about being an individual and allowing your personality to show through your clothing."

The Fashion Victims show also will include original designs by DISTRO.Y, Zazzi, and several other local fashion companies.

Doors open at 9 p.m. at ManRay, 21 Brookline St., Cambridge. Admission $10, 19-plus. Dress code enforced; minimum all black, no sneakers, no brown shoes. For more information, visit www.xmortis.com.Emily Sweeney can be reached at esweeney@globe.com.