A Cover-Up

Wearing Bardot

Danny La Rue, professional femulator, circa 1950

A Monday Mix

Got Velcro?

Velcro to the Rescue

I recently purchased a wrap dress online. It fit fine, but when I sat down, the snap that held the wrap in place would pop open and the portion of the dress under wrap would gradually become loose and the dress would unwrap. The problem is that the snap is tiny and does not have much holding power. And/or when I sat down, my voluptuous figure bulged just enough to open the snap.

A button in place of the snap would solve the problem, but I don’t know how to make a button hole, so that solution is not a solution.

A few years ago, I had a similar situation with a different wrap dress and I fixed the problem with Velcro – the kind with a sticky back that adheres to just about everything. So I cut a quarter inch piece, then attached the Velcro pieces next to the male and female parts of the snap. Then I put the dress on, sat down and the snap and Velcro combination held.

Wrinkles Be Gone

As an Avon Lady, I sample a lot of Avon products. One that I am raving about these days is Anew Clinical Line Eraser with Retinol Treatment. I apply it every morning after cleansing my face, but before I apply moisturizer and I am ecstatic over the results. 

According to the product blurb, “Clinically shown to reduce the look of fine lines and wrinkles in just days.” And it’s true. Days after I started using the product, I noticed that the wrinkles around my eyes lessened and now they are for all purposes gone – I have to look real close to find them.

Otokonoko

For years, I’ve heard that crossdressing is popular in Japan. I don’t know how popular, but Mikki and Paula alerted me to a YouTube video that explores some of the Japanese crossdressing culture. The video is interesting and worth watching (it’s only 5 minutes long). Click here to view it.

Wearing StyleWe

Jennifer AKA J.J. Atwell of "Stuff" fame

Too Tall?

Wearing Rue La La

Toby Sawyer femulating in the British film Private Life.

The Hunt

Wearing Stylewe

Hardi Simon, professional femulator, circa 1900

Thursday Tomfoolery

Femboy Barbie; Before and After

King Kong Vs. Femboy

First Time

Monday’s post was about the second time I crossdressed. In reverse order, today’s post is about the first time I crossdressed.

I was 12-years-old in 1963 and became fascinated with female impersonation when I noticed weekly thumbnail-sized ads in the New York Daily News for 82 Club. Each ad depicting  a glamorous showgirl accompanied by the caption “Who’s No Lady?”

The 82 Club showgirls were female impersonators and I was amazed that a male could emulate a glamorous female! I was so impressed that I began clipping the 82 Club ads out of the newspaper each week and hiding them behind the Washington Senators in the box containing my baseball card collection. 

One thing led to another and one afternoon when I was home alone, I went into my parent’s bedroom and opened the drawer of my mother’s bureau where she stored her nylon stockings. (This was in the days before pantyhose and seamless stockings were popular, so her nylons had seams.)

I carefully slipped a stocking up each of my hairless legs (those were the days!) and straightened the seams. When I was done, I opened my mother’s closet door to admire myself in the full-length mirror mounted on the inside of the door.

I liked what I saw: a pair of legs that looked just like a pair of woman’s legs! Then I realized that I could do even better. 

Inside the closet were stacks of shoeboxes containing my mother's shoes. I carefully looked through the boxes for a pair of high heel pumps. When I found a pair (with a three-inch heel), I slipped them on and revisited the full-length mirror.

Not only did I see a pair of woman’s legs in the mirror, but they were now a shapely pair of woman’s legs! I proved to myself that that a male really could emulate a female.

I quickly, but carefully removed the shoes and stockings and returned them to their proper place before my family returned home. And I assure you that would not be the last time I would visit my mother's bureau, closet and full-length mirror.

Wearing Max Mara

Femulating professionally at 82 Club.

Or Sox

Wearing Farm Rio

Richard Lane and Edward Brophy femulating in the 1946 film Girl on the Spot.

Second Time

After donning my mother’s nylon stockings and high heel shoes and discovering that I was able to emulate the shapely legs of a woman, I just had to push the envelope further. The next time I was home free to explore my mother’s wardrobe, I repeated my first time, that is, I slipped on a pair of her nylon stockings and high heel shoes.

I was well aware of the options available to women of the early 1960s to keep their nylons up and their seams straight. In my mother’s case, she used the garters that were attached to a girdle. I found her stash of girdles in a drawer of her bureau and had to choose from a variety of styles: open bottom, panty brief, long leg panty, high-waisted panty and high-waisted long-leg panty. I figured I needed all the help I could get, so I selected a high-waisted long-leg panty model.

I unzipped and unclasped the girdle, stepped into it and tugged it up over my legs, hips and waist. When I was finished squeezing into it, I closed its clasps and zipper with some difficulty. When I was done it felt like half of my torso was in the grips of a rubber vise.

After I attended to the nylons – straightening their seams and attaching them to the garters of the girdle – I swung open the closet door, viewed myself in the full-length mirror and concluded that the picture was incomplete.

The girdle had redistributed my “baby fat.” As a result, my waist was narrower and my hips were wider, but above the waistband of the girdle, a ring of displaced fat encircled my body and ruined the picture.

I was sure I knew how to fix it – it was time for my first bra!

My mother had a small selection of bras to choose from and they were all similar in style and size, so I randomly grabbed one and tried to figure out how to put it on.

I struggled unsuccessfully to close the bra’s clasps while wearing the bra with its cups in front. So, I slipped the straps off my shoulders, twisted the bra around with the clasps in front of me, closed the clasps, twisted the bra back around and slipped the straps over my shoulders – and that’s the way I have been putting on a bra ever since.

After adjusting the straps of the bra, I was astonished that my breasts nearly filled the cups of the bra! My “boy boobs,” which were the object of ridicule by my peers, now had a safe place to call “home.”

And when I revisited the full-length mirror, the picture was now complete; there was the body of a shapely woman in the mirror’s reflection.

By the way, recalling my second time crossdressing, I realized that the event occurred in 1964 – 60 years ago. 

And so time goes.

Wearing Bebe

Frederick Weller femulating in television’s In Plain Sight.

High on Heels

Wearing Bebe

Paolo Ballesteros femulating in the 2016 Filipino film Die Beautiful.

Notes from the Changing Room

Let me preface this with the fact that I am a large person. Until late 2017, I weighed 215 pounds to go along with my 6-foot 2-inch height. I dropped 30 pounds in 2017, so I am still a large person at 185 pounds. My height more than the weight kept me closeted for a very long time, but when I finally began exploring my female persona in public, I found that my size was not a deal breaker. 

Using the changing room en femme was easy. Using the changing room en homme was just as easy. I lost count how many times I used the changing rooms in Fashion Bug, Dress Barn, Fashion to Figure, Torrid and Macy’s to try on womenswear during a lunch hour while disguised as a male.

I can recall only one “negative” experience. It occurred a very long time ago. Shopping for a girdle en homme in JCPenney, when I asked to try it on, the saleswoman insisted that I use the men’s changing room. Not a big deal, but that was the only changing room experience that I can come up with that had any negativity.

The layout of the dearly departed local Dress Barns had changing rooms scattered around the perimeter of the sales floor. They also had a changing room area in the back of the store. The first few times I visited Dress Barn en homme, I was sent to the back-of-the-store changing room. But as I became a regular customer and the sales staff knew me by name (both male and en femme names), I was invited to use the more public perimeter changing rooms, which was delightful when I was en femme because it gave me the opportunity to exit the changing room and view whatever I was trying on in the three-way full-length mirrors outside the changing room. And doing so invited the sales staff and even customers to comment on what I was wearing. The sales staff usually liked what I was wearing (to make a sale), but when a stranger says they liked what I was wearing, it was a home run and that’s where I went with my new dress.

And so it goes.

Wearing Ann Taylor

Nadia Russo