Shopping
Thursday was a full day out en femme for me.I dressed and was ready to go out by 9 AM, but that was too early — the stores were not open yet, so I watched the news and sipped a cup of coffee.
I wore a recent purchase from Avon's Mark line — a turquoise peplum dress, which I accented with silver jewelry (earrings, necklace, watch) and black accessories (bag and heels). I also wore my knock-off Pandora charm bracelet from Avon.
I was on the road at 9:45 and stopped at the mall in Meriden to see a friend who works in JCPenney. We worked closely at a former employer and since then I had run into her at JCPenney a few times in boy mode. Now I wanted to introduce her to Stana.
She is about as tall as I am, so she is easy to spot, but after searching both floors of the store, I did not find her. Not to waste the visit, I looked through the clearance racks at JCPenney, but did not find anything of interest.
I usually find something of interest at DressBarn, so I left the mall and drove to the DressBarn in Hamden, which is only 10 minutes away from Southern Connecticut State University, where I was doing outreach.
I arrived at DressBarn, entered the store and discovered that I was the only customer. The cold weather on Thursday reminded me that I needed a new sweater dress, so I attacked the racks and found some dresses of interest. A young sales representative “started” a dressing room for me and hung my finds in my dressing room to try on whenever I was ready.
I thought to myself that shopping as a woman was wonderful. Look at all the choices I have and I love how the sales reps treat you like a queen.
I found three dresses to try on. The first dress was a long-sleeved, white, gray, and black color-block boat neck sweater dress, which I liked a lot, but it was too big and the next size down was not available.
The second dress was a green sweater dress with an empire waist, three-quarter dolman sleeves and a revealing V-neck collar that fit perfectly. I thought it would be the perfect dress to wear to a Christmas party, so I moved it to the buy-side of the dressing room even though I had no Christmas party to go to… yet.
The third dress was a black faux leather trim sweater dress. The asymmetrical faux leather collar with four functional button closures on the inner left of cowl made the dress. It fit like a glove and also went to the buy-side. I liked the dress so much that I decided to wear it out in place of the peplum dress I was wearing. (It’s not the first time I’ve done that… just an exercise of a woman’s prerogative.)
I paid for the two dresses and since my order broke the $100 mark, I received a free makeup bag, which I did not expect.
Did I mention my feet were killing me?
I was wearing my go-to heels, which seldom give me a problem, but for some reason, they hurt like heck on Thursday. Since there was a Payless store a few stores up from DressBarn, I decided to see if I could find something more comfortable on sale. This Payless had a huge selection of women’s size 11s, 12s, and 13s, so I had fun trying on a lot of shoes.
The most comfortable and stylish shoes I found were a pair of “Menswear Harriet” T-strap pumps (photo above). I wore them around the store and after ten minutes, they still felt comfortable despite their 3-1/2-inch heels, so I bought them. And like the dress I bought at DressBarn, I wore my new shoes out in place of my 4-1/2-inch platform pumps.
By the way, the sales reps at DressBarn and Payless were very friendly and treated me like one of the girls. If they knew I was trans, they never let on and that made the shopping experience that much better.
Brolita.
Wearing Ali Rio.
