Metamorphosis Balls Revisited

March 2020, I wrote about Catherine the Great's “metamorphosis balls” in which the male and female attendees crossdressed under orders from the Russian empress herself. I researched the subject, but only found an article from Vogue magazine, which was sparked by the metamorphosis ball scene in the HBO series Catherine the Great (photo above).

Yesterday, an article came across the mojo wire via Atlas Obscura, “The Weekly Cross-Dressing Balls of 18th-Century Russian Royalty” by Sarah Durn, which goes into much greater detail than the Vogue article. 

The men would be required to wear the stockings, corsets, petticoats (up to five was customary), ruffled lace sleeves, hoop skirts, and elaborate sack back gowns that, on any other occasion, the women of court would’ve worn. The women, on the other hand, had to wear men’s embroidered waistcoats, full-skirted coats, breeches, white silk stockings, shoes with ostentatious buckles, a powdered wig, and an unwieldy sword.

In the metamorphosis balls, in which both men and women dressed as the opposite gender, there are two power shifts going on. First, Cole says, “there’s the power of somebody making you dress outside your gender.” Second, there’s the power play that “by doing it yourself, you are critiquing the power dynamics of gender and gendered dress.” By forcing their male courtiers to dress as women, Elizabeth and Catherine were reminding everyone who was boss. They made the rules. And even men had to follow them.

It is a fascinating read and I recommend it to all Femulate readers.

Wearing Madeleine.

Femulating Russian nobility in the 2019 Russian television series Ekaterina (Catherine).
You can view the femulation scene from Ekaterina on YouTube.

Pantyhose Ups and Downs

Pantyhose, from the miniskirt to the boardroom and now banished to the back of lady’s lingerie drawers.

By Paula Gaikowski, Contributing Editor

I have always been captivated with and loved pantyhose. I hesitated writing this article for fear it would pigeonhole me as being somewhat obsessed in a seedy way. I’ll emphasize that is not the case. It is more that I identify my femininity with this classic sense of style and formality.

Stockings and tights were the first clothes that I was drawn to. They hung from the shower curtain, the girls in my class wore them and television advertisements teased “sheer indulgence.” I remember a No-Nonsense radio ad with a background chorus that sang, “We make you feel more female.”

As I evolved over the years, pantyhose have always been a part of my wardrobe. A close shave and a pair of Hanes Silk Reflection hose will literally transform half my body into a more feminine form. Nowadays, at least once a week when getting dressed for work, I’ll put on my bra, panties and pantyhose sit there for a minute and reflect on the up coming day and take them off before putting on my male work clothes. Nothing sensual or erotic, just a moment of peace.

Pantyhose sales have been in steady decline since the mid 1990’s. What the heck happened? There appears to be a multitude of reasons. As baby boomers entered the workforce, the hippies and counter culture entities shed their blue jeans and peasant skirts for suits, wingtips, pumps and pantyhose. The dress code of business was defined by the current generation in power at the time. Remember the movie Working Girl with Melanie Griffith. (I wanted to be just like her!)

Then there was a changing of the guard in the mid-90’s Women became managers and gained control over dress codes and fashion choices in business. Female executives began to realize that there was no compelling reason why she or her colleagues had to spend $50 to $100 a month on pantyhose or wear them when it was hot and humid. Sales began a steady decline through the early 2000’s with the financial industry and white shoe law firms being the last holdouts. Today, the only place we see pantyhose daily is on flight attendants and the staff of southern Republican senators.

All is not lost mind you. I travel to the UK several times a year and can tell you unmistakably when women wear a dress, they will wear hose and most often it is black. Perhaps it’s the cool and rainy climate, but the selection of black tights in Marks and Spencer is huge. I can say the same is true in Poland, The Netherlands, Hungary, China and Australia. Argentina and Chile get an honorable mention.

Prior to the advent of pantyhose, stockings were held up by a garter belt or a girdle with built-in garter clips. An essential part of every woman’s wardrobe, stockings provided the perfect vehicle for DuPont, the company responsible for the invention of nylon. Nylon stockings made their grand debut in a splashy display at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York. By the time stockings were released for sale to the public on May 15, 1940, demand was so high that women flocked to stores by the thousands. Four million pairs sold out in four days.

Pantyhose went on sale in 1959, the year I was born! A coincidence? I think not. Not surprisingly they were invented by a man, Allen Gant in 1953. At the time, Gant ran the Glen Raven Knitting Mill of North Carolina, which was founded by his father John Gant in 1902. Gant was inspired to invent the garment by his pregnant wife, Ethel, who complained about wearing garter belts especially while she was pregnant. It might be worthy to note that Ethel did construct a prototype panty with hose sewn in.

Pantyhose slowly became popular, however, older women were hesitant to give up their stockings and like many trends in the last century, the baby boomers latched onto pantyhose when the miniskirt became popular. Gartered stockings did not work well with miniskirts. Stockings quickly took a back seat and pantyhose became the standard for women. When it was time for them to go to work, the baby boomers brought them into the office and social events.

During their peak of popularity, the selection of pantyhose was overwhelming. They came in all types of colors, deniers of sheerness, textures, support, lite support, control top and sandal foot. There were television, radio, newspaper and magazines ads.

The sheerness of pantyhose is measured in denier. Denier translates to  “French coin of small value.” One very small thread of silk was worth one denier. This evolved into the standard for measuring the thickness of fiber and thread in the modern textile industry. Super sheer stockings might be 10 or 15 denier, while opaque tights might be 40-60 denier. I’ll note here that in the US, we refer to the more sheer denier as pantyhose and the heavier denier as tights. In the UK, tights are used to describe all pantyhose.

To quote Hosiery Association President Sally Kay, “Sales of the traditional waist high garment will not return to those which the industry experienced in the 1970’s through the late 1990’s.”

Oh, Sally, say it ain’t so!

Fear not my Femulate readers, pantyhose are far from gone. In fact, they are enjoying a small bit of a popularity among younger women. Sheer hosiery had $482 million in sales in the one-year period ending May 2018 and 27% of those sales were to millennials, which is an increase of 9%.

The other 91% were probably me and Stana!

Wearing Nine West heels

Femulating at the 1983 Closet Ball

The Forgotten Trans History of the Wild West

Mrs. Nash, a transwoman who took three husbands in Montana

"Despite a seeming absence from the historical record, people who did not conform to traditional gender norms were a part of daily life in the Old West, according to Peter Boag, a historian at Washington State University and the author of Re-Dressing America’s Frontier Past. While researching a book about the gay history of Portland, Boag stumbled upon hundreds and hundreds of stories concerning people who dressed against their assigned gender, he says. He was shocked at the size of this population, which he’d never before encountered in his time as a queer historian of the American West. Trans people have always existed all over the world. So how had they escaped notice in the annals of the Old West?"

Boag limited his research "to towns west of the Mississippi, and the period of time from the California Gold Rush through statehood for all the Western continental territories. It wasn’t that this time and place was more open or accepting of trans people, but that it was more diffuse and unruly, which may have enabled more people to live according to their true identities..."

Read the rest of the story here.

Wearing Venus.

Patrick Walshe McBride femulates in a 2018 episode of UK television's Shakespeare & Hathaway: Private Investigators. After posting another image of this femulation here yesterday, a number of readers wondered if the program was viewable online. Good news is that I found the femulating episode ("The Fairest Show Means Most Deceit") on YouTube and Amazon Prime, while Comments to yesterday's post mention other sources. By the way, Patrick's femulation is excellent. Not only does he look spot on, but his voice and mannerisms are convincing, too.  

When in Versailles...

Yesterday, I purchased the Kindle edition of A Treasury of Royal Scandals for $1.99. I figured that there had to be a few femulators in the book and sure enough, I hit pay dirt: Philippe, Duc d’Orleans, who was the brother of France's King Louis XIV.

According to the book, Philippe was gay and "was forever dressing like a woman" and "loved putting himself on dazzling display, sashaying his way through the gilded halls of Versailles."

When I read that, I recalled featuring a photo from the French television series Versailles that I featured in the Femulator spot back in October 2016. The photo showed actor Alexander Vlahos in female garb.

At the time, I assumed that Versailles was fiction and the writers included some crossdressing to spicen things up. Little did I know that the actor was portraying an real historical figure, Philippe, Duc d’Orleans.

Live and learn.

Whereas Alexander Vlahos' portrayed Philippe as a tall, thin femulator, the book claims that Philippe was actually "short and pot bellied.”

By the way, the only other femulator I could find in the book was France's King Henri III, but that's another story.

Wearing Cinq A Sept dress and Francesco Russo sandals (Source: Intermix)

Alexander Vlahos (left) portrays Philippe, Duc d’Orleans in the French television series Versailles.

Three Pieces for Thursday

Book Report Dept.

A lot of water has gone under the bridge since Susan Stryker wrote Transgender History: The Roots of Today's Revolution in 2008, so she has updated her work. The second edition of Stryker's book  includes all that has happened since 2008 and as you know, a lot has happened in those intervening years.

In the Mail Dept.

Would you like to receive Femulate by e-mail? Just click on the Get Femulate by E-Mail link at the top of the right-hand column to subscribe to the blog. Or just click here!

Skirting the Issue Dept.

Have you ever wondered what is the most flattering skirt length for your height? Well I have the answer for you: an article from Who What Wear appropriately titled "The Most Flattering Skirts for Every Height" by Nicole Akhtarzad.

I won't keep you in suspense, so "as far as miniskirts go, if you’re on the taller side, the best type would be a classic straight-cut style. Rather than covering your waist, a classic style sits lower, so it offers more fabric while still showing off your legs."

Harry McEntire femulates in the 2012 British film Unconditional Love. View the film's trailer here and clips from the film here and here. (Thank you, Patty, for the heads-up about this film.)

Someday Funnies

In January, I wrote about how I grew up with comic books.

I outgrew comic books circa 1970 and except for Zap and it's ilk, I seldom bought any. But I was interested in the history of comic books and comic strips and began buying books related to that history.

Over the years, I amassed a collection of such histories. A few nights ago, I was reading a recent acquisition and was reminded of Madam Fatal, a 1940's superhero who dressed up as an elderly woman to fight crime.

Richard Stanton, a retired actor whose daughter was kidnapped, used his acting skills to disguise himself as an elderly woman and in that persona was able to effect his daughter’s rescue and her kidnappers’ capture. Seeing the need for justice to be meted out, he continued to use his female identity to battle criminals as the first crossdressing superhero as Madam Fatal. (Source: An International Catalogue of Superheroes)

Madam Fatal was not popular and only ran for 22 issues. (You can see her in action here: Spotlight Comics #9.)

I started thinking about a Madam Fatal revival. Bring her back as a 21st Century superhero, but as a 30-something fashionista rather than an elderly woman... a cross between Katy Keene and Lizz Worthington-Grove.

I researched the idea on the Internet and discovered that Madam Fatal appeared as "Miss Sharp" (above) in a 1944 flashback in Shade #4. But she has never been seen in a contemporary setting.

Wearing Bebe (Source: Bebe)

My skirt's not too short – my legs are too long!

Beyond Katy Keene

When I was a youngster, one of my first favorite comic book characters was Katy Keene, the long-legged fashion queen with jet black hair. I was fascinated by her glamorous image and I loved cutting out the Katy Keene paper dolls and outfits that appeared in the pages of her comic books.

No one ever discouraged Little Stana's interest in Katy Keene. In fact, Mom abetted it by helping me cut out the more difficult outfits. (Sometimes I think Mom wanted me to be a girl. She always encouraged me in all of my interests including those on the feminine side of the street.)

I don't recall any crossdressing in the pages of Katy Keene, but I did wish I could wear some of the outfits that Katy wore.

As I grew older, I started to worry about my image, so I stopped reading Katy Keene to avoid being branded a "sissy." Superman, Batman, Dick Tracy, and Mad magazine replaced Katy and soon I encountered crossdressing in their four-colored pages.

I remember a female impersonating gangster appearing in a Batman story. I also recall stories in which Superman's pal, Jimmy Olsen, went undercover en femme. Dick Tracy had so many encounters with gangsters in drag that I still wonder about the Chester Gould's feminine side. Over the years, Mad had numerous encounters with crossdressing.

Meanwhile, Japanese comic books (manga) and cartoons (anime) have lots of crossdressing. Over 10 years ago, Jana built a web site dedicated to trans content in Japanese comic books and cartoons. But one thing led to another and Jana expanded the web site to include television, films, literature and history, as well as Japanese comic books and cartoons.

Jana's TG Lists, subtitled "transgender in media," which is accessible here, is an amazing collection of trans-media. I highly recommend it!

Wearing Bebe.

Long-time Femulate reader Sheila attending the Southern Comfort Conference.

Our History

K.J. Rawson sent me a heads-up about Digital Transgender Archive (DTA). Little did K.J. know that I had already been exploring DTA after receiving news about it via the mojo wire. So I thanked K.J. for the heads-up and said that I would pass along news about DTA here.

Overview

The purpose of the Digital Transgender Archive (DTA) is to increase the accessibility of transgender history by providing an online hub for digitized historical materials, born-digital materials, and information on archival holdings throughout the world. Based in Worcester, Massachusetts at the College of the Holy Cross, the DTA is an international collaboration among more than twenty colleges, universities, nonprofit organizations, and private collections. By digitally localizing a wide range of trans-related materials, the DTA expands access to trans history for academics and independent researchers alike in order to foster education and dialog concerning trans history.

The DTA uses the term transgender to refer to a broad and inclusive range of non-normative gender practices. We treat transgender as a practice rather than an identity category in order to bring together a trans-historical and trans-cultural collection of materials related to trans-ing gender. We collect materials from anywhere in the world with a focus on materials created before the year 2000.

My initial exploration of DTA was to find anything related to Fantasia Fair. My search turned up 182 items going as far back as 1974!

Since I am very interested in history (and herstory), I will revisiting DTA often. It is a great resource for anyone researching transgender history and will only get better as the archive continues to grow.

Wearing Chetta B.

Arthur Askey in the 1940 British film Charley's (Big-Hearted) Aunt.

My Kind of Birthday Party

“Private Birthday Party is a private collection of found photographic slides that depict Kansas City’s early drag ball culture throughout the 1950s and 1960s. With over 200 images, this collection is a rare, important look into the rich history of mid-century drag ball culture in middle America.”

You can view a sample of the collection here and read a Cut article and interview about the collection here. Thank you Aunty Marlena for the links!

The photo above is very telling. Which femulator passes best? The three girls in glamorous attire or the girl in street clothes?

 

 

 

A Kansas City femulator and her friend in 1964 (from the Private Birthday Party collection).

 

 

 

Wearing Spense.

Our Events

 

Our Stories

This past weekend, I missed "Moving Transgender History Forward" at the University of Victoria, home of the world’s largest trans archives.

"Scholars from colleges, universities and community organizations across North America and all over the world converged on Vancouver Island March 21-23 to attend the first-ever conference on accessing and archiving trans history.”

Normally, I would not mention past events [unless I was present and being fabulous (is that redundant?)], but in this case, I want to pass along some wise words regarding transgender history from Jan Brown, my friend of renown.

"It's important to know where we have come from and the people who have spurred on the movement. If anyone has historical material, please don't just throw it away thinking no one would be interested.

"Not true! There is a lot of interest to save our history. You just have to find the right place and right now, the University of Victoria is very interested, as are The Center and the University of Michigan Library (Labadie Collection)."

Our Lives

One month from now, on April 26, Transgender Lives: The Intersection of Health and Law Conference will be in full swing at the UConn Health Center in Farmington, Connecticut.

"This all day conference is geared towards service providers, medical and legal professionals, trans and gender non-conforming community, allies and all those interested in the health and law issues facing the trans and gender non-conforming communities."

Two of my trans buds (Dru Levasseur are Tony Ferraiolo) are the keynote speakers and their speech will be preceded by a full slate of interesting and pertinent workshops.

The Conference costs only $25, includes a free lunch and is conveniently located on I-84, half way between Boston and New York City, so it is an easy drive for folks living in the upper right corner of the lower 48.

Hope you can make it!

Our Fair

I like attending New England fairs in the fall and my favorite fair to attend is Fantasia Fair in Provincetown on Cape Cod. The longest-running annual trans conference in the world celebrates its 40th anniversary this year and the week-long event runs from Sunday October 19 to Sunday October 26.

Fantasia Fair "continues to be the leading annual program promoting a gender-variant individual's ability to thrive in real-life situations." Unlike most trans conferences that occur in one building (read: big closet), Fantasia Fair occurs all over a very cool seaside resort and has a huge menu of things to do (sleep is optional).

Register as early as possible to save on the registration fee, so don't delay.

You can read about my last trip to Fantasia Fair among these posts. I hope to see you there this year!

 

 

 

Professional femulator Terry Dunham posing for a photoshoot in 1974.

 

 

 

Wearing Diane Von Furstenberg.