Tag: clothing

Apology from OUT!Wear

Posted by helenboyd – July 17, 2011

The letter and apology from Maria Nasca of OUT!Wear:

14 July 2011

To our LGBT Community;

Please let me begin by saying it was never my intent to alienate our community or promote hate in any manner. Believe it or not, I had no idea of the gravity of this very political issue and the hurt it would cause. As a businessperson working in this community for the last 17 years, I have received many amazing inquiries, ideas and suggestions via my website to design and produce many products that I now currently sell.

As of late, I have received many inquiries to design and develop the WBW line of products for my customers. However, I was not as informed about this issue as I am today. It was an emotional reaction/business decision and NOT an informed action to develop this line further, and for that I truly apologize. No articles of the product line have been produced, and I have made the decision to discontinue it in the spirit of repairing and healing any damages that may have occurred as a result of this uninformed decision.

Please do not interpret my silence up till now as anything other than needing time to take this in, educate myself and create a thoughtful and respectful response. More→

OUT!wear Letter

Posted by helenboyd – July 15, 2011

I don’t (yet) have permission to reprint it, but Maria Nasca of OUT!wear has written a letter of apology to the larger LGBTQ communities, and it’s on Facebook.

Am I Really Writing a Post about Bras? Well Yes I Am.

Posted by helenboyd – June 26, 2011

Bras are actually the kind of thing I get asked about quite a lot because I work with women who weren’t dragged to Macy’s by mom the first time she noticed they had visible nipples, like I was. (Believe me, some things trans women should be thankful for.) I really like this queer guide to bras: great for butches, ladies with smaller breasts, and there are some useful lists, like this one on the kinds of bras it’s good to have in your possession:

1) A racerback (or convertible, which is good ’cause it also goes strapless in case tube tops come back)
2) For under white shirts, a bra that matches your skin tone
3) Regular black bra for everyday use
4) Sports bra for sports and/or gender panic

A blog post about bras that actually uses the term “gender panic”: excellent.

Similarly, she explains the differences between types of bra cups: Demi-Cup, Balconette, Contour Cup, Soft Cup, Padded, Push-Up, Minimizer, Molded Cups, Plunge. I’m partial to demis and Balconettes, myself. She mentions that they’re good for skinny girls, which is not exactly accurate: my feeling is that they’re better for certain kinds of breasts, but you’ll only know once you wear them. I find they’re sexy and create enough cleavage but not too much: I don’t wear pushups unless I need somewhere to rest my chin.

More→

Thai Tomboy

Posted by helenboyd – February 23, 2011

A new clothing store catering to tomboys and FTM spectrum people has opened in Bankgkok.

“At first people probably thought it was crazy,” said Supamas “Jean” Sirimoungkalavanit, owner of Tom Chic shop. “It was quite understandable to get such responses because tomswear was something new to them.”

“People often misperceive [sic] that we want to be like men,” she says. “We have a different taste, lifestyle and identity, and so tomboy clothing is different from what men wear.’’

Indeed what we categorize in the states more often as lesbian chic than tomswear does have a unique aesthetic it has quickly spread to tween boy idols and throughout the fashion world. And though Sirimoungkalavanit tries to make it clear that her shoppers do not necessarily want to be like men there is certainly an aspect to her line that many trans-identified people can relate to.

How cool is that?

Breeching the Girls

Posted by helenboyd – July 16, 2010

Aha! Finally, an explanation that makes sense:


Just as boys were once clothed in dresses, they were also once swaddled in pink. Historically, in many European countries, pink was the dominant color for boys, and blue—the official hue of the Virgin Mary—was the popular girls’ color. (emphasis mine)

which appears in an article by Brian Palmer at Slate about gendered clothing for young children, and whether or not Shiloh isn’t just a trendsetter (or retro, depending).

(Which forces me to admit: I was surprised the author of the article is male. Ah, gendered expectations always bite in the end.)

Handsome Women in Handsome Clothes

Posted by helenboyd – June 24, 2010

Entrepreneur Shaz Riley has started a clothing company catering to butch women. It’s about time: menswear made for women which de-emphasizes bust line and doesn’t make room for package.

What I find amazing is that on Joe.My.God’s post about it, there are people who don’t seem to understand that butch women are women.

Sometimes the cluelessness in the LGBTQ community about gender identities and expressions blows my mind.

Crossdressed Protest

Posted by helenboyd – December 16, 2009

It’s kind of amazing, the idea of Iranian men wearing traditional head scarves to show their allegiance to the insurgence, but that’s what they’re doing.

Thus the new protest also speaks to the societal aspect of Iranian women being forced to accept a dress code, according to Dabashi.

“Proud to wear my late mother’s rusari, the very rusari that was forced on my wife in Iran, the very rusari for which my sisters are humiliated if they choose to wear it in Europe, and the very rusari that the backward banality that now rules Iran thinks will humiliate Majid Tavakoli if it is put on him — He is dearer and nobler to us today than he ever was.”

In a speech before his arrest, Tavakoli played on the theme of the day’s historical significance in light of current anti-government protests.

“We Iranian men are late doing this,” Dabashi said. “If we did this when rusari was forced on those among our sisters who did not wish to wear it 30 years ago, we would have perhaps not been here today.”

(thanks to Jade Catherine for the tip)

Dress Codes in High School

Posted by helenboyd – November 7, 2009

A decent article in the NYT about high schools, crossdressing, and identity:

At Wesson Attendance Center, a Mississippi public school, just that sort of fight erupted over senior portraits. Last summer, during her photo session, Ceara Sturgis, 17, dutifully tried on the traditional black drape, the open-necked robe that reveals the collarbone, a hint of bare shoulder.

“It was terrible!” said Ms. Sturgis, an honors student, band president and soccer goalie, who has been openly gay since 10th grade. “If you put a boy in a drape, that’s me! I have big shoulders and ooh, it didn’t look like me! I said, ‘I can’t do this!’ So my mom said, ‘Try on the tux.’ And that looked normal.”

Shortly thereafter, students were informed that girls had to wear drapes for yearbook portraits; boys, tuxedos.

The Mississippi chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union wrote to the school. Rickey Clopton, superintendent of Copiah County schools, did not return phone calls. Last month he released a statement affirming that the school’s decision was “based upon sound educational policy and legal precedent.”

Last month, Veronica Rodriguez, Ms. Sturgis’s mother, paid for a full-page ad in the yearbook that is to include a photograph of her daughter in a tuxedo.

He’s in Fashion: Men in Skirts

Posted by helenboyd – October 26, 2009

It’s not always the male-bodied people who crossdress or who are transgender that wear skirts; sometimes guys who identify as guys do. Sometimes even models do.

At Skirt Cafe (www.skirtcafe.org), skirt-minded men and people of other genders get together to talk about hemlines. As Bob explains:

At SkirtCafe, we are dedicated to the idea of “Fashion Freedom” for men. The basic idea is… if you want to wear a skirt, just do it; now you’re a man wearing a skirt. Men might want to wear skirts for many reasons. Some guys just like to be different, some want comfort, some want to look and feel beautiful, some have experienced gender dysphoria in one way or another. But whatever the reason, we are committed to the idea that we can just do it, as a man wearing a skirt.

We don’t need to go through elaborate makeup routines, or emulate a stilted notion of femininity, or consider changing our body through strong drugs and surgery, or orient our lives around our fashion choice, or call ourselves “Suzi” for the evening, or hide from everyone we know. There is no closet, and no secrets. Unlike the CD community, we really are no different from the woman who decides to wear a buttondown, described in your introduction. It’s just a fashion choice.

We have demonstrated, again and again, that a guy wearing a skirt in public is no big deal — a “non event.” We’ve experienced little or no rejection or discrimination, and we don’t bother much to hide our identity or fashion choice from the world.

Over at New Male Fashion, the blogger asks:

Wouldn’t it be likewise fair for us males in need of displaying our creativity, sense of style, and flare, who enjoy keeping in touch with our “feminine side”, to have the freedom to adopt styles, colours, and garments that were once considered too “feminine”?

Public opinion is moving tardily but steadily in that direction. Designers come up with innovations and creativity in their masculine lines, as opposed to the dullness and uniformity that has been so far the main feature of male garments. New proffers include not only more daring colours and designs, but also male skirts, high heels, dresses, and other garments that used to be kept at the other side of the aisle.

A “New Male” is under construction. Hopefully, a more balanced, understanding, sensitive, creative male.

The statement is beautifully underlined by the photo of the coy “new male” model that accompanies this post, & there’s a lot more like them there, including clothes by Westwood, Pugh, and Baratashvili.

(Ana de Gregorio styled by Ash Stymest, photographed by JM Ferrater.)

Morehouse Crossdressing Policy

Posted by helenboyd – October 20, 2009

Morehouse College has chosen to have a clothing policy that prohibits crossdressing:

The dress-wearing ban is aimed at a small part of the private college’s 2,700-member student body, said Dr. William Bynum, vice president for Student Services.

“We are talking about five students who are living a gay lifestyle that is leading them to dress a way we do not expect in Morehouse men,” he said.

Before the school released the policy, Bynum said, he met with Morehouse Safe Space, the campus’ gay organization.

“We talked about it and then they took a vote,” he said. “Of the 27 people in the room, only three were against it.”

There has been a positive response along with some criticism throughout the campus, he said.

Senior Devon Watson said he disagrees with parts of the new policy, especially those that tell students what they should wear in free time outside of the classroom.

I’m wondering if someone needs to tell them about straight crossdressers, and about pre-transition MTF trans people. Hopefully Morehouse’s Safe Space already does – but I doubt it.

Wearing Pants in Sudan

Posted by helenboyd – September 7, 2009

Women couldn’t wear pants in lots of places in the US until at least the 1970s, but in the Sudan, they’re still fighting tradition:

Sudan is partially ruled by Islamic law, which emphasizes modest dress for women. Mrs. Hussein, 34, has pleaded not guilty and is daring the Sudanese authorities to punish her.

“I am Muslim; I understand Muslim law,” Mrs. Hussein said in an interview. “But I ask: what passage in the Koran says women can’t wear pants? This is not nice.”

Mrs. Hussein even printed up invitation cards for her initial court date in July and sent out e-mail messages asking people to witness her whipping, if it came to that. She said she wanted the world to see how Sudan treated women.

The issue there is tradition, even if it’s being explained as a religious issue; here I’m sure it was pretty much the same kinds of arguments, all of them sexist bullshit.

Summer Wedding Clothes

Posted by helenboyd – August 1, 2009

Honestly, what do you wear when you’re me, for a summer wedding, when you’re doing a reading & want to feel confident & where a bunch of people will be looking at you?

I’m not the long tunic/flowing pants type. I’m not the sundress type. Everything I own is black.

Miss Thing tells me she has no appropriate sandals. I do not understand how someone can own 50 pairs of shoes & not own the right sandals (especially when she doesn’t know what dress she’s wearing yet).

On top of the rest, it may rain, which means nothing too sheer.

*sigh*

I am so bad at formal clothes.