Metamorphosis Balls

Catherine the Great was a series that appeared on HBO last fall. I did not see it, but I heard that the first episode included scenes with crossdressed men. I planned to watch that episode, but one thing led to another and I forgot about it.

I recalled the HBO series yesterday when I came across an article about “metamorphosis balls” on Vogue.com.

“At the end of the first episode of HBO’s Catherine the Great, the empress Catherine (played by Helen Mirren—née Mironoff) holds a cross-dressing ball at the palace. Catherine, who we usually see in elaborate, heavily embroidered gowns (courtesy of costume designer Maja Meschede), is pictured instead wearing a tailcoat and breeches, taking advantage of the relative ease of movement to prance about the room and lead her courtiers in a traditional Russian dance.

“Meanwhile, her male advisors and military generals, who are usually seen in the episode trying to undermine Catherine’s authority, scuttle around looking uptight, toying uncomfortably with their undergarments and badly fitted wigs. Her power-hungry lover Grigory Orlov (Richard Roxburgh) is now more frustrated by his corset than by his diminishing presence at court: “This f**king thing—it pushes my tits up too far.”

“These gender-bending masquerades actually existed and were known at the time as metamorphosis balls. They were first popularized in Russia in the 1740s by Empress Elizabeth I, the daughter of Peter the Great and Catherine’s de facto mother-in-law, who purportedly held eight as part of her coronation celebrations and then every Tuesday throughout her reign. While balls involving cross-dressing were popular throughout Europe, they took on special meaning in Russia in the 18th century, an era dominated by female rulers looking to assert their authority through symbols of masculinity.”

(Click here to read the entire article.)

Wearing Shailene

Richard Roxburgh (right) attending a metamorphosis ball en femme in HBO’s Catherine the Great 

My Wig’s Not Too Small – My Head is Too Big!

In general, girls like us have bigger heads than civilian girls. So it behooves us ladies to adorn our heads with bigger wigs just like the girls above.

In my youth, I did not pay attention to wig sizes – I assumed that wigs trying to escape from my head was par for the course in WigLand. Then I bought a large-sized wig and happily discovered that it did not try to runaway from me like my average-sized wigs!

Here are some signs your wig is too small (according to wigs.com):

👧 If the wig slides back on your head and reveals your scalp or hairline, it’s too small.

👧 If the wig has a lace front, check it out. If it’s rolling under instead of lying flat, you need a bigger wig.

👧 Likewise, if your wig has a monofilament top, it should lay flat too. If the monofilament cap sticks up like a point on the top of your head, that’s a symptom of a wig that’s too small.

👧 Lastly, if it’s too tight, it’s obviously too small. If it squeezes your temples or pulls your biological hair, it’s too tight.

I learned my lesson and now I only buy large-sized wigs. They not only fit better, but they look better because they are properly proportioned for my large head.

The only problem (and it is a big problem) is that the selection of wigs in large sizes is limited. For example, I searched one online wig retailer and found 25 large-sized wigs, while that same retailer had over 650 average-sized wigs.

That is kind of discouraging, but I believe that the situation is improving. Wig manufacturers are expanding their line of large-sized wig models. For example, Gabor recently announced three new large-sized wig styles!

I don’t know if Gabor is reacting to a demand for larger wings from girls like us or not, but their new wigs are a welcome nonetheless.

Wearing Madeleine

Huntz Hall, Leo Gorcey and The Bowery Boys femulating in the 1952 film Hold That Line

My Secrets

Paula wrote, “Love your style; please share your secrets with us!”

I had to think about my “secrets” because most of what I do style-wise comes naturally to me. I don’t think about it, I just do it. And this is what I do.

Emphasize your assets.

My legs are my best assets, so I show them off by wearing short skirts and high heels. Heels make my legs even more shapely and short skirts reveal the results.

And there is some truth when I say, “My skirt’s not too short – my legs are too long!” I have resigned myself to the fact that the styles I prefer are going to be on the short side due to my leg length.

Dress for your body’s age, not your calendar age.

My arms are svelte enough for sleeveless sheaths and my legs are toned enough for short hemlines, so I show off what I’ve got (while I’ve still got it).

When in doubt, wear nude pumps.

Matched to my skin tone, they’re a safe bet and they make my legs look even longer.

If it works, keep working with it.

When I find a style that looks good on me, I become a fan of that style and populate my wardrobe with more examples of that style. For example, I discovered that I look good in wrap dresses and as a result, I now own an assortment of wrap dresses.

On the other hand, keep an open mind. When you are shopping, try on styles that are not in your style book. You never know – it may look great on you. That’s how I discovered that jumpsuits belong in my style book.

Never buy a boring coat.

“Outerwear should never be an afterthought,” says Holmes & Yang co-designer Jeanne Yang. “So many people only see you in your coat—if you’re not wearing something great underneath your trench, they’ll never even know!”

With that thought in mind, fur coats are never boring. I own two full-length fur coats and a fur jacket. And I love animals, so all my furs are fake.

Own something in animal print.

Animal prints are timeless, racy enough, and always glamorous. I own a variety of animal print clothing and accessories.

Scarves are not for hiding.

Scarves are recommended for girls like us to hide our Adam’s apple. I don’t have much of an Adam’s apple, so I never wore scarves... until about ten years ago, when I came across my dear departed Mother’s stash of scarves. One girls’ night out, I wore one of her scarves in her honor; I liked the look and began collecting and wearing my own stash of scarves.

Bigger jewelry is better jewelry.

Most girls like us are proportionally larger than cisgender girls. As a result, some of the jewelry designed for cis-girls is proportionally too small for us. So when I shop for jewelry, I shop for jewelry that is bigger rather than smaller.

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If you have any questions about my secrets or anything else, please ask (stana-stana at sbcglobal.net).

(Thanks to InStyle.com for helping me bring out my secrets.)

Caveat Emptor: This post is an edited rerun from six years ago

Wearing Lemoniade 

Someday Funnies

Wearing Venus

These images seem to answer the often-asked question posed in this blog, i.e., do “civilians” continue femulating after participating in womanless beauty pageants? 

Throwback Thursday: At Work En Femme Update

In response to yesterday’s post, Angela wrote, “The likeness of you in this picture is quite incredible.” I agree (with tongue in cheek), so I thought I would share it with you.

Throwback Thursday: At Work En Femme

It is hard to believe that the first time I went to work en femme on Halloween was 20 years ago! Wow! Here is my story of that ground-breaking day.

Halloween is “National Crossdresser’s Day,” so they say. I guess there is some truth in that because my first public crossdressed outing was on Halloween and I know many other crossdressers also poked their bewigged heads out of the closet for the first time on October 31. And over the years, I have continued to crossdress on Halloween attending parties given by friends and my support group. But, this year was different.

One week before Halloween, my company announced that they were sponsoring a day of Halloween events including a costume contest. In all my years of being gainfully employed, no employer of mine had ever sanctioned wearing costumes to work on Halloween.

I know some of you have gone to work en femme on Halloween and I often considered it, but I never had the nerve to do it. However, this year, I could go to work en femme with the blessing of the boss! T’was a crossdresser’s dream-come-true.

There was no doubt that my costume would be en femme, but how en femme was the question. I considered my options and decided to dress appropriately for my workplace, which is an office. My costume would be “office girl drag.”

I had a plenty of outfits that qualified as office girl drag, so I went through my stash to decide what to wear. I narrowed my choices down to three outfits. To make the final decision, I slipped into my unmentionables and modeled each outfit for my wife. She and I agreed that the black print, short-sleeved, knee-length sheath looked best. To round out the ensemble, I chose tan pantyhose and a pair of black patent pumps with 3-1/2-inch spike heels.

The night before Halloween, I prepared for the next day. I depilated, combed out my wig, and laid everything out so I could get ready as quickly as possible Halloween morning. I turned in early because I had set the alarm clock for 4:45 AM to give me enough time to depart for work at 7:15 fully made-up and dressed. However, turning in early did no good because I was so excited I had a hard time falling asleep. It was after 2 AM before I finally nodded off and I woke up 15 minutes before the alarm clock was set.

I got up, shaved, showered, and applied my makeup. For a change, I had no makeup disasters and was finished by 6:15. I put on my undies, dress, shoes, and wig, then I checked myself out in a full-length mirror. Was that Nicole Kidman’s reflection in the mirror? Not quite, but when I squinted real hard, I thought I saw Nicole Kidman’s mother.

Last thing to do was my nails. I applied press-on nails to my pinky and ring fingers, then I had an incredibly hard time applying the nails to my middle fingers. None of the press-ons fit quite right and adding glue did not make a difference. Time was running out, so I decided to forgo the nails. After removing the press-ons from my pinky and ring fingers, I grabbed my purse and hit the road.

The commute was uneventful and I arrived at work 15 minutes early. I exited my car and walked to the main entrance enjoying the feminine beat of my heels clicking on the sidewalk.

Inside, the first people I encountered were our receptionist and a woman from Human Resources. At first, neither of them recognized me. Then, they both recognized me and started gushing over my costume. So far, so good.

I went upstairs to my cubicle. Since I was early, there was no one around to see me, so I went to the cubicle of one of my best friends at work (she is one of the few people who gets to work earlier than I}. I stuck my head around the corner of her cubicle and said, “Trick or treat.” She was floored!

After she regained her composure, she began calling me “Stella” and insisted on escorting me to the cubicles where other early birds were already at work. Our first stop was her boss, who had been with the company about six months. I don’t work directly with him, but he is only three cubicles away from me and we cross each other’s paths each day.

My friend pushed me into his cubicle and he had no clue. At first, he thought I was a new female employee, but my friend blew my cover, “Don’t you recognize him?” He didn’t until I explained that I was the guy three cubicles away.

And that was the way it went all day long. A tall woman in a Halloween costume environment is a dead giveaway. As a result, the majority read me as a man in drag, but did not know which man until I showed them my mug shot on my security card. On the other hand, a minority did not read me at all including some folks that I work with on a regular basis.

By mid-morning, the word was out that there was a guy in drag upstairs and a procession of onlookers began marching up to my cubicle to check me out. (No other guys appeared in drag. In fact, only a handful of guys wore costumes at all. On the other hand, the woman had a lot more Halloween spirit and approximately 1 out of 4 women appeared in costume.)

In general, women loved my costume. Some were amazed that I shaved my legs and my arms. Others complimented me on my makeup and some asked, “Did your wife do your makeup?”

“No, I did it myself,” I responded, which caused even more amazement.

A few remarked that I should quit my job and become a professional female impersonator! One woman said, “You made my day,” and she returned to my cubicle three times with two or three new onlookers in tow each time. A pretty administrator remarked, “You look better than most women I know.”

I don’t think I fooled everyone. A few women gave me knowing looks, like they knew I looked too good to have only done this once. But, I didn’t mind.

On the male side, the majority appreciated my costume, but there were two or three who seemed to be phobic about it, typical macho twaddle, I guess.

Shortly after getting to work, my pantyhose began running like crazy! I don’t know if they were defective or I was careless, but by 10 AM, I had three runs that were getting bigger by the minute. I wanted to look my best, so I left the building for a few minutes and drove to a nearby CVS to buy a new pair.

Now, this is the scary part because CVS was not having a Halloween costume contest. I parked the car and walked into CVS passing a handful of people who paid me no mind. I entered the store and to avoid causing a commotion, I went to the first salesgirl I saw and explained that I ran the pantyhose of my Halloween costume and needed a new pair.

“Hosiery is in aisle eight, Ma’am,” she replied, unfazed by my Halloween costume hint.

I guess I was not going to cause a commotion, so I went to aisle eight, picked out a pair, then I went to the register where the same salesgirl rang me up without a clue.

Now, here is the amazing part. I never used a femme voice. I spoke in my normal male voice, which is admittedly soft-spoken, but definitely male. I guess the salesgirl’s eyes convinced her that I was a woman no matter what clues her ears might be picking up. (I had read about this phenomenon, but did not believe it until I actually experienced it.)

I returned to my office and waited for the results of the costume contest. A lot of people said they would vote for me and I guess they did because I won. I thought there were three or four costumes that were better than mine, but I guess having the guts to wear the costume I wore was that little extra that pushed me over the top.

I feel a little guilty about that because it did not take any guts to do what I did. This was something I wanted to do for a very long time. I also felt like I cheated a little because this wasn’t a costume I put together overnight. I’ve had practice dressing like this for years.

I’ll admit that I did have some qualms about possibly losing the respect of some of my colleagues. But when I thought about it, if somebody lost respect for me because I crossdressed on Halloween, then I don’t want their respect. So, qualms be damned! Tighten that corset as tight as you can. Today you are a woman!

I made one fashion blunder: my choice of footwear. I had not worn that particular pair of high heels in such a long time that I had forgotten why I stopped wearing them – because they hurt a lot in a very short time! I have other pumps with the same heel height and even higher that don’t hurt like that pair did. The only saving grace is that I did not have to get up and walk around too much. I could just sit at my desk and pose for my admirers whenever they showed up.

However, I regret that I did not wear more comfortable shoes because I wanted to go to the mall, have lunch at the food court, and do some window-shopping. But by noon, my feet were so hobbled that walking around the mall would have been very ugly.

I also had a fashion revelation. Wearing a tight corset all day was quite painless. The corset did inhibit movement, but it did not cause any aches or pains (like my shoes and clip-on earrings), while improving my figure immeasurably.

I had the time of my life. I wished the day would never end, but it did and now I have a lot of wonderful memories about my first day at work en femme.

Wearing TRE by Natalie Ratabesi skirt suit, Bottega Veneta bag and Casadei boots

John Barrowman femulating on the London stage in La Cage Aux Folles.

Uni to Girly

Brows can either make or break your entire look.

I had a unibrow when I started to get serious about femulating. I did not have a solid unibrow, but there were enough hairs above the bridge of my nose that it was not very ladylike. So early on, I took a razor to that patch of hair.

In boy mode, nobody noticed that I now had two distinct eyebrows. (Wearing eyeglasses in boy mode also helped to disguise my eyebrow feminization.)

Emboldened, I bought eyebrow tweezers and an eyebrow trimmer. With the tweezers, I attacked the stray hairs and with the trimmer, I shortened any hairs that had grown to unruly lengths. The result was neater and more feminine brows. And in boy mode, nobody noticed.

Further emboldened, I began using the tweezers to thin my brows. I only thinned along the bottoms, never the tops because I had read in a number of places that you should not pluck along the tops of your brows because if you do, the hair will not grow back!

Still nobody noticed, so I kept on thinning and the result was a perfect feminine sweeping curve along the bottom of my brows, while the top was not so perfect.

I was a little frustrated until I visited our public library and took out a book titled Beautiful Brows: The Ultimate Guide to Styling, Shaping, and Maintaining Your Eyebrows by Nancy Parker and Nancy Kalish. The book deflated the advice about not plucking above your eyebrows and said to go ahead and pluck above, as well as below.

Immediately after reading that passage, I dropped the book, went to the bathroom and plucked all the strays above my eyebrows! Now my eyebrows, both tops and bottoms, looked neat and feminine and since then I continued to pluck and thin above and below. (By the way, the hair does indeed grow back above as well as below.)

This is a very tricky business, so take your time and go back and forth between your left and right brows so that they will look alike.

To color and define my brows, I use an Avon eyebrow pencil. Although my natural eyebrow color is light brown, I use a blonde eyebrow pencil because I found that using a brown pencil resulted in a brow that was too dark. Blonde is just right for me, so you too might want to go one shade lighter than your natural brow color.

Using an eyebrow brush, I comb out my brow hairs so they are lined up horizontally and pointing away from my nose.

Next, I sharpen the pencil to a very fine point and draw a line that defines the upper edge of my eyebrow. I start drawing the line above the inner corner of my eye (point A in the accompanying figure), angling upwards to the peak of the arch which is above the outer edge of the pupil of my eye (point B), then drawing the brow out to a point that lines up with my nose and the outer corner of my eye (point C). All the while I draw the line as close as possible to my existing brow hair.

After I define the tops of my eyebrows, I use the pencil to fill in the area below the line where the hair is thin or missing. Then I use the eyebrow brush to brush and even out the color I just applied.

Women generally have higher brow bones than men, resulting in a greater distance between the bottom of the brow and the eyelid. To compensate, use a highlighter to brighten the area under the arch and lift the brow even more.

Any questions? I will try my best to answer them.

Wearing Venus

Femulator models her H&M haul

Hong Kong?

Tsang Ching is a 33-year-old Hong Kong cisgender
male, who has been presenting as a female in public
for six years.

My goal this week is to finish doing taxes. That’s six filings – federal and state for my daughter, sister and my wife and me. I use TurboTax, so that helps a lot. The big task is getting all the paperwork organized to input into the software. So I am in a numbers frame of mind this week.

Speaking of numbers, everyday I check the stats for this blog – usually just the number of hits for that day and occasionally, the all-time hit list, which is now in the neighborhood of 19.6 million. But today, just for the heck of it, I clicked on the Audience stat selection and was surprised by the top 10 Pageview by Countries stats.

No surprise that the USA was first, followed by the UK, but the number three spot surprised me; it was Hong Kong! (Germany, Canada, Russia, Netherlands, Australia, Austria and India were in the four through ten slots.)

Chinese and English are the official languages of Hong Kong, so there is no language barrier, but I almost never write about femulating in the Asian continent, so what’s the attraction?

Maybe femulating is so universal that cultural and language barriers are no barriers at all.

Wearing Elie Tahari

Sheila Wolf, professional femulator

Dress to Shop

Meg wrote, “When you’re dressed and shop, what do you wear?

"I'm planning to talk to saleswomen and ask to try clothes on next time I go. I’ve wanted to but never done it so far.

“Is a dress better than a skirt/blouse? If I’m wearing the latter and I want to try on a dress, I have to remove both and there may be many buttons. If I wear the former, I need to find a top to go with a bottom or vice-versa when I want to try one on and if the dress goes over my head, my wig could get out-of-sorts (also with a pullover top, hence the worry about buttons).

“How about sharing your experiences?”

👠 👠 👠

I'll gladly share my experience, Meg.

When I go shopping and plan to try clothes on in the store, I wear something that is easy to take off and put back on, so usually a dress without a lot of buttons. Also, something that has a wide collar opening like a scoop neck or V-neck, so as not to muss up my hair and makeup when I pull it off and on (so avoid anything with a turtleneck).

The best thing I ever wore shopping was a dress that had a zipper in front that zipped from the neckline to the hemline of the dress. I could get in and out of that dress quick like a bunny.

Also, to minimize changing back into the outfit you wore into the store, take as many outfits as the store allows to the dressing room. Or shop in a store where there is personalized service with a salesperson at your beck and call to fetch outfits for you while you are in the dressing room.

If you are shopping for a skirt to match a top or vice versa, then that is a different story and you will want to wear whatever you are trying to match, unless it is so generic that you can find something in the store to use for matching.

On the other hand, if you are just skirt shopping, for example, wear an easy on-and-off dress. When you find the skirts you want to try on, grab a top, too, so that you will have something to model with the skirts. Of course, you don't have to purchase the top, but then you might find one that goes so nicely with the skirt you are buying that you will just have to buy the top, too!

I hope that helps!

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Occasionally, I receive e-mails asking for advice. Often, the writers of these e-mails indicate that they are hesitant about writing to me for advice because they don't want to bother me.

On the contrary, I love receiving e-mails asking for advice. My maternal side loves to help others if she can, so please feel free to ask. Maybe I can help you and maybe you will help me by expanding my knowledge of the transworld. And maybe our e-mail exchange will inspire me to write an interesting blog posting (like this one).

So, use the “send me e-mail” link on the right to write to me.

Wearing St. John

Advertisement for an “All-Male Review” in Atlantic City, circa 1969

Someday Funnies

Wearing Walter Baker

Harold Perrineau (right) femulating in the 2000 film Woman on Top

Gender Is Over

“When people call me a girl or misgender me I don’t really care. To me, gender is over. Gender is so last year.”

That is a snippet from an excellent article written by a 13-year-old named C.J. I think is a perfect piece to conclude the previous three posts and I thank Velma for alerting me to the article. Without further adieu, I invite you to read what C.J. had to say here.

Wearing Ann Taylor

At a recent womanless beauty pageant, I’m guessing that’s Mom in the middle, her son on the right and his friend on the left.