What Were You Made Of?

Among the books I owned as a child was a volume of nursery rhymes. That book included the following verse.

What Are Little Boys Made Of?

What are little boys made of? 
What are little boys made of? 
Frogs and snails, 
And puppy-dogs' tails; 
That's what little boys are made of. 

What are little girls made of? 
What are little girls made of? 
Sugar and spice, 
And all that's nice; 
That's what little girls are made of.

As a child, I found frogs and snails repugnant and I was afraid of dogs. On  the other hand, I loved sugar and spice. Also, I preferred things that were nice versus things that were not so nice, which often seemed to be preferred by my male contemporaries.

I was a little girl, but I did not know it. Luckily, I figured it out after I grew up to be a big girl.

Wearing New York & Company

Some Boys Already Wear Dresses

The accompanying slideshow is a compilation of male models wearing dresses, skirts and other female finery. Most are shown while on the job modeling womenswear on the runway or posing for catalogs or fashion magazine spreads. While others are candid shots taken while on the job or not?

One thing they all have in common: they all are flat-chested. Some wear bras, but there are no breast forms or other paraphernalia to femulate female breasts.

Tall and thin male models are used to model womenswear because they conform to the ideal female model profile, i.e., tall, thin and flat-chested.

Okay – I get it. But why are these guys showing up off the job still wearing makeup, hairdos and female finery? Are they transgenders or trendsetters?

Some admit to being the former. Others might be transgender, too, but are unwilling to reveal that fact.

Can I assume that the rest are trendsetters, who prefer to adorn themselves using the wardrobe options that are available to females?

The lack of falsies indicates that they aren’t femulators, so I assume they are trying to blaze a new trail in the world of male fashion.

Take Phillipe Blond (Slide 25 above), for example. He is an American fashion designer, who always appears in public wearing “women’s” clothing, yet his given name, flat chest and male voice are assurances that he is a boy.

And he is not alone.

Wearing Unique Vintage

Julie's Christmas femulation

All Boys Will Wear Dresses

Following up with my recent “All Men Will Wear Dresses” posts (here and here), I learned about Primary, an online children’s clothing store that sells dresses for girls and boys!

I assume there must be a demand for boys’ dresses, otherwise, why would Primary bother. Admittedly, this is not a big investment by Primary because they offer the very same dresses to girls. Primary may be just testing the waters, but if their test pans out and there is a demand for more boy’s dresses, the future of fashion may be interesting.

When dress-wearing boys grow up, they will want to continue wearing dresses as adults. And I can imagine future clothing stores not divided by sex (women's and men’s departments), but by age (children’s and adult’s). I hope I live long enough to see it!

Wearing New York & Company

Angela is posing pretty for Christmas!

Someday Funnies

Wearing Ann Taylor

Walter Giller femulates in the 2001 German film Mein Vater, die Tunte

My Boston Proper Problem

I wrote here about my Black Friday purchase from Boston Proper. I also made a second purchase from Boston Proper on Cyber Monday.

Both dresses arrived here this week and both ran small. I returned the Cyber Monday dress for a refund. Besides being too small, I did not like how its collar looked on me, so I did not bother exchanging it for a larger size.

I loved my Black Friday purchase and it actually kind of fits, but I wish I had ordered a larger size because the snap that keeps the dress closed pops open if I breathe the wrong way. One size larger would have alleviated that problem, but I cannot exchange the dress for a larger size. When I purchased the dress, unbeknownst to me, it was considered a “Final Sale” and as such, it is not returnable according to Boston Proper policy.

So what are my options?

My first thought was that if I lost more weight, it would solve the popping open snap problem.

My second thought was to take the dress to a tailor and have a button hole made and a button added. I figured the button would do a better job keeping the dress closed than the snap did.

I planned to take the dress to my tailor today for that purpose, but I had a third thought while tossing and turning in bed this morning: VELCRO®. I already have plenty of adhesive-backed VELCRO® strips on hand. I think it will do the job – maybe not as well as a button, but certainly better than the snap. I have nothing to lose, so I will try it and if that does not work, I will let the tailor have at it.

Lessons learned: (1) Boston Proper dresses run small and (2) pay close attention for Final Sale notices. (I never saw the notice until I tried to exchange the dress online yesterday.)

And so it goes.

Wearing New York & Company

Nancy was the first Femulate reader to send me her posing pretty Christmas card!

’Tis the Season

Christmas cards started showing up in our mailbox this week. Some are probably in response to the cards we sent out last week.

This year, we did something different. Instead of mailing our cards at the local post office, we drove to the Bethlehem, Connecticut post office where our cards received the Bethlehem postmark instead of the usual Hartford postmark.

Also, the Bethlehem post office has over 80 rubber stamps on hand depicting various Christmas themes that customers can use to decorate their cards and letters before handing them over for mailing.

We had some fun at the PO decorating our cards with the rubber stamps. Afterwords, we went to a Chinese restaurant for dinner!

For some time now, femulators have been sending out cards of themselves posing pretty in front of a Christmas tree. This tradition goes back to at least the 1960s when some of the Casa Susanna girls had Christmas photo cards. It seems that more and more girls now carry on the tradition.

A more recent tradition that I have noticed are family Christmas photo cards with the male family members crossdressed as females and the female family members crossdressed as males. A variation of that theme that I discovered on Pinterest appears in the Femulator slot below where the male and family members are dressed as drag queens!

On that note, I invite you to send me your posing pretty Christmas card and I will feature it in the blog during the holidays!

Wearing New York & Company

Mary Christmas!

First I look for the purse

Maybe it's just me. Maybe it has something to do with the environment or the era in which I grew up. But in my mind, a purse, clutch, handbag, pocketbook, etc., is the defining part of an outfit that indicates that you really mean business with regards to presenting femininely.

I can wear a wig, dress, heels, makeup, earrings, necklace, bracelet, pantyhose, tampon, bra, girdle, panties, etc., but until I add a purse to my outfit, only then do I feel that I am really femulating.

Without a purse, a guy in a dress still has a lot of freedom, especially in his upper body, to move and motion in a manly manner. Hand him a purse and that is a mare of a different color. She now has to move and motion differently; she must consider her purse at all times and move accordingly.

“Moving accordingly” means moving like a lady, that is, she must carry herself like other ladies who are carting a bag.

While you are at it, carry a nice bag. A designer bag is to die for and shows the other girls that you are really concerned about your feminine appearance.

A designer bag does not have to bust your budget; the consignment shops are full of like-new designer bags at cut-rate prices.

So, get a nice bag and carry yourself and the bag like a lady.

And happy femulating!

(By the way, Couture Allure Vintage Fashion has a how-to on the topic of carrying handbags.)

Double dating in matching dresses

More Feminine

Ever notice that in photos of femulators with their spouses, the femulator often dresses more "feminine" than the spouse?

Such is the case in my life.

In the last 10 years, I probably added 50 dresses to my wardrobe. In that same time period, my wife added two dresses to hers.

I own scores of high heels. My wife owns none.

I use lots of makeup. My wife uses none.

I wear lots of shapewear. My wife wears a bra.

Etcetera.

Source: Intermix

Linda Chang

All men will wear dresses after all

My recent post titled “All men will wear dresses” talked about an article in the British edition of GQ magazine that predicted, “In 30 years time, the gender-fluidity movement will have progressed to the point that men are not only allowed but encouraged to wear dresses and skirts.”

Maybe, maybe not.

But images like the one on the right make me think that there might be something to GQ’s prediction. The photo shows actress Elizabeth Hurley (right) and her son Damian (left) in a lacy pink dress, girly bracelet and a hairdo just like Mom’s!

The Hurleys are not alone. Google “celebrity children crossdressing” and you will discover many celebrities who are OK with their sons dressing in feminine finery.

How many will continue dressing pretty as adults remains to be seen? But my guess is that unless they are forced to stop dressing pretty, they will continue to do so. For example, Earvin "Magic” Johnson's son EJ Johnson and Will Smith’s son Jaden are celebrity sons who continued to dress pretty as adults.

Some may be transgender, but the others just like to dress pretty and will influence fashion-conscious civilian males to dress pretty, too.

As fellow blogger Juan once wrote, “Gentlemen, put on your skirts and high heels, fetch your purses, and head to the future.”

Usually, I Photoshop ads to remove the ad copy. But ads like the one above contain so much verbiage that no amount of Photoshopping will help and I discard them. However, the model in this Metrostyle ad is absolutely gorgeous and deserves to be seen despite the ad copy.

Damian Hurley

Femulating Failure

It works!

I learned quickly that there are a number of advantages to sitting to urinate. So much so that I sit to pee in boy mode, too.

In boy mode a few days ago, I sat to pee as a good girl should and as I dropped my drawers, my iPhone slipped out of my back pocket into the toilet bowl! I retrieved it as quickly as possible and dried it off as best as I could. I thought all was well until I made a phone call – there was no sound emitting from the phone!

I soon discovered that there was water in the headphone jack and the iPhone interpreted the water as an inserted headphone plug. Thus, the iPhone defaulted to headphone mode; it was sending audio to the headphone jack instead of the speaker.

I messed around with the phone for an hour trying to get the water out of the jack, but no luck. I dreaded taking the iPhone apart again, so I decided to first try a trick that worked in the past with my daughter's drowned iPhones: put the phone in a bed of uncooked rice to absorb the moisture.

Happy to say, when I retrieved the phone from the rice bowl the next morning, all was well with my iPhone!

And I learned my lesson: from now on, I will leave my iPhone in my purse when I sit to pee.

Wearing Sophie Et Voila

Ross Adams femulating on British television’s Hollyoaks.

Loving Honeylove Shapewear

By Bobbi R

Hi Stana,

With your recent weight loss, you probably will not be using this shapewear, but there are a few of us larger “girls” that may benefit from their use. 

The company is called Honeylove.com. I happened upon their website and their offerings looked very interesting especially with my figure issues, which are a flabby lower tummy muffin top and saggy tush.

My initial purchase was the Super Power Short. It has a large X tummy panel and a very high waist. It also has a high waist that goes all the way up to my bra band. Now I no longer require a longline bra. 

The downside is that it's difficult to put on. It is very tight initially, but becomes less so each time you wear it. Gently work it up, centering the X panel over your tummy and suddenly your tummy and muffin top are gone. And, after a few minutes, the initial tightness goes away and you will feel firm and sleek. 

After donning a pencil skirt or bodycon dress, you'll be a convert – your outfits will look great. In fact, the first time I wore it out to a girls' night out dinner, I received many compliments on my appearance and after several hours of wear, it remained comfortable to the point that I forget that I was wearing shapewear. 

It has a split crotch to make trips to the ladies' room relatively easy. The rear “BoostBands” provide a little welcome boost. However, at the end of the day or evening, when getting undressed, you'll feel really soft and flabby... at least I did. 

I also tried the Queen Brief. It provides excellent support especially when wearing shorter skirts, but it can be worn with all outfits.

Depending on which size you select, click on the link to show the garment in your size. The styles are relatively expensive, but in my opinion, are worth the cost as the results speak volumes and you will definitely feel great in all your outfits. Honeylove's guarantee makes it worthwhile to try the different styles. The company's guarantee is either you like it or simply return it for a full refund.

Anyway, as the old saying goes, “nothing ventured nothing gained” definitely applied. When you have an opportunity, check out the website and their offerings.

Wearing Venus