Standing in the men’s dressing room at Nordstrom, I am afraid I’ve made a mistake. My new suit from Topshop was designed for only the thinnest and cruelest of bargain-hunting British men. I am a five foot three American queer in Texas. The sleeves hang so far over my hands they disappear. The pants gape around my waist and cling to my ass. We have just spent $400 on this thing, and I look ridiculous.
“Don’t worry, honey,” the hassled salesman says. “The alternations will fix it.”
The seamstress pins, tugs, and fusses with fabric. Helpful tip: if you buy a full suit at Nordstrom, the alterations are free. The seamstress wears a satin pencil skirt and three gigantic lucite rings. The salesman is tall and honey-haired; he finds my proportions adorable. My girlfriend snaps pictures with her phone. She tells me I look handsome.
In your twenties, the only reason to dress up is weddings. I always wore a dress and, increasingly, hated it. Dresses were skins of my former self, pulled from a closet I had taken years to extricate myself from. But weddings are loaded: with stress, with tradition, with family. I didn’t want to scandalize a friend’s conservative grandpa so I could show up in a suit.
Then, a short story of mine was nominated for a Nebula award. The Nebulas span an entire weekend, capped by a formal awards banquet which are basically a geek Golden Globes. Nominees take their attire very seriously, which meant my formalwear bluff had been called. While I could lose a Nebula, I wouldn’t have to worry about scandalizing its conservative grandpa. I would relish scandalizing science fiction’s conservative grandpa. And if I didn’t dare dress as I wanted when being honored for my own work, when would I?
There are a wealth of blogs and articles about how short, square-shaped queer ladies can assemble a suit, and I read all of them. The guides are full of reassurances about nice Men’s Warehouse employees and empowering dapperness. I experienced both of those things, but holy god, crossing gender lines in a mall is profoundly awkward.
After all those encouraging blog posts, my girlfriend and I made Men’s Warehouse our first stop. We made the mistake of suit shopping during prom season. The store was teeming with teenage boys and their mothers picking out mildly ugly jackets. I went to three proms in high school. For each, my mother and I devoted hours to finding the perfect dress. I wore everything from a massive princess gown to a slinky beaded dress and claimed to love every one. But whenever I saw myself with the updo, the makeup, and the fancy ass dress, a shameful disappointment settled in. We had spent so much money and time, and I didn’t like what I saw.
At the time, I brushed it off as self-loathing and ignored how jealous I was of my date’s top hat and tails. Years later, these awkward teenage boys still had the temerity to fit into the suits better than I did. We left without trying on a thing.
Suits started looking up when we discovered a Top Shop outlet in Nordstrom. The internet had helpfully explained that Top Shop often offered an affordable and lady-friendly option, since their suits were cut so small. When our salesman was so obviously gay, and so obviously found us adorable, it was a relief. But because men’s departments don’t make suits for short ladies, helping me was like solving a vexing puzzle rather than shopping. I didn’t want to be a cute interloper; I wanted to be handsome.
If I have a model for masculinity, it’s gay men. The only truly butch thing I do around the house is take out the garbage. I am effusive and neurotic and like to bake. In college, I won the butch lottery: I was the scrum captain of the rugby team. Every captain who’d come before me was taciturn, short-haired, and sexily aloof. The entire team was in love with them. Nevermind that I was still clinging desperately to the notion that I was bisexual, or that I fled from any girl who genuinely wanted to date me — I’d finally made it in the homo hierarchy, or so I thought. My heart broke the first time all the freshman told me how unintimidating I was.
For years I thought my fairly feminine interests and affectations meant I was straight; later I thought it meant I was femme. When dresses became unbearable and I cut off all my hair, butch seemed the way to go. I tried throwing my arm around my girlfriend in public more, and then I’d screw it up by baking her cupcakes. I wanted to be like my gay male friends who put together mean cheese plates and looked great in a tie. To be fabulously butch.
But even this fabulous gay salesman at Nordstrom found me confusing. Staring at myself in that goofy overgrown suit, as the impeccably dressed seamstress chatted with the equally impeccable salesman, fabulousity seemed further than ever.
I sourced the rest of my outfit online, standing on the shoulders of helpful bloggers who determined Cole Haan shoes look manly and J. Crew sells convincing button down shirts. Ten million boxes appeared at our doorstep, most of them full of ties. Knowledge which came naturally when thinking about women’s clothing, I utterly lacked when it came to menswear, so I just ordered everything. Who knew what color shoes went with what color suit? Men’s fashion publications encouraged pattern mixing, but I was so unfamiliar with existing traditional choices I didn’t know which patterns to mix or why. I got a tie clip and googled what to do with it.
There was one universal piece of fashion advice I could apply: stay classic. Choosing the gray suit, the black oxfords, the black satin bow tie, the white shirt struck me as boring. But elegance possesses a certain genius boredom. Plus, no one had advice on what color tie to pair with pink hair.
We returned for two more sessions with the seamstress — all free, honestly that is crazy — and the suit became more suitable. The jacket buttoned snugly, the sleeves hit my wrists, my ass had been painstakingly accommodated. After years of beautiful dresses, for the first time I got that fairytale thrill: tailoring was magic. Still, it was hard to feel satisfied. Staring at the three-way mirror in yellowy light, I was only used to looking for flaws.
Here is where I belatedly explain how much my girlfriend Jen hates shopping, and malls, and fancy clothes. She has no interest in fashion; her sole wardrobe priority is maintaining the structural integrity of her Gap tank tops, which she bought in Orange County in 1998. The fact she came to the mall with me on this quest not once, but three times, is a staggering act of love. I did not dare suggest finding her a new dress for the Nebulas; she wore one I’d picked out for her previously at Anthropologie, a store she’d had no idea existed until I took her there. Yes, we enjoy messing with straight people who subtly try to determine who is the man in the relationship.
The awards were in San Jose that year, so my friend Alice came down from San Francisco to join Jen and I at the ceremony. Alice is hands-down the best-dressed and most fashion-forward person I know (she’s also a great writer.) Back when I was attempting to be femme, I used to gaze upon Alice and despair. Not that she’s particularly femmey – hers is a uniform of structural black, killer leather jackets, red lipstick and boots. But as I started dressing more like I wanted to dress, rather than how I thought I should, my Alice despair vanished. A firm believer in the transformational power of fashion, Alice uses clothes to define herself. When I started doing the same, we became closer.
The three of us got ready in our hotel room together. Alice I expected to take a long time, but Jen did too. I was used to a formal occasion involving hours of makeup and hair and primping. Alice and Jen were in the bathroom doing just that. Meanwhile, I’d just had to iron my shirt and put on my suit. It seemed impossible that all I’d had to do was put on a pair of pants, a shirt and a jacket to look good.
But when I looked in the mirror, I liked what I saw. The satin lapels of my jacket echoed my bowtie and shiny shoes. The dark gray suit had a stylish dignity to it, and my pink hair swept back looked edgy and classy at the same time. All those years of compromising, of flamboyant dresses, muted dresses, elegant heels, quirky ones — and finally, I’d done it. I was handsome.
The three of us are chronically late individually, and with our powers combined we were lucky to make it down before the ceremony at all. I walked into the lobby feeling nervous and hyper-visible, like there was a blinking sign above my head reading LOOKIT A HOMOSEXUAL. But as soon as we joined the crowd, something clicked. I was surrounded by fellow nerds decked out in every fabulous ray of the geek rainbow. We shared a table with the grand master honoree, Gene Wolfe, who showed up in an army jacket and a very nonionic wolf teeshirt. Another member of our table wore full regency dress.
I also wasn’t the only queer in a suit. Science fiction has its fair share of conservative grandpas; I had maddening conversations with several of them. But it also has its fair share of gay, queer, and trans* writers and fans, drawn to the genre’s long tradition of imagining worlds far outside our current gender binary.
I have no idea who took the picture above, of Jen, Alice, and I. But that is probably my favorite picture taken of me, if not ever, then in a very long time. It’s striking, in retrospect, that my biggest fear was looking somehow fake, or in authentic. Because never have I felt more like myself.
Since then, I’ve still worn dresses on occasion. I wore one on a fancy dinner out with Jen, which felt like a delicious kind of drag. But I feel most satisfied and correct in button-down shirts and ties; my favorite recent purchase is a blazer.
I’ve spent a lot of time, probably too much, puzzling over what this shift in gender presentation means. Could I be trans, or genderqueer? How far, exactly do I want to take this masculinity thing? My preference for ties and ladies feels inextricably connected, but for many queer women that’s not the case. At the moment, I’m dwelling in the negative capability of my own gender trouble. Plenty of other queers do the same; the word ‘futch’ exists. If I have a tendency that’s harmful, it’s behaving how I think I should based on existing labels, rather than how I like.
Like all great pleasures, dress can be a profoundly dangerous thing. It can show you to yourself, and reveal you to the world. My biggest fear buying a suit was that I’d waste hundreds of dollars and look ridiculous. Not because women in suits look ridiculous – they look amazing – but because I did not deserve it. Thinking like that gets to the heart of why fashion, so often derided as frivolous, is a powerful tool. Of course I deserve to look amazing. You do, too.
Here’s a sampling of some of the many helpful resources I used in finding a suit. If you have more money/ are good at planning, several companies will make a custom suit for your fabulous gender-non-conforming self:
The Handsome Butch
The Style Manual: Suits 101
The Style Manual: Suits 201
Wedding Suits for Butches, Transmasculine Beings and Other Festive Gender-Benders
Dapper Q on Suits
Clothes Designed For Butches (Yes, Really)
Tags: clothes, fashion, lgbt, meghan mccarron, queers in suits always, writing
QUEERS IN SUITS ALWAYS. This is wonderful – you beautifully articulated a lot of my feelings about fashion and identity. I’m so happy you found a style that feels true to you (and you don’t need me to say it, but you look damn handsome in that suit!).
guh, thank you
Thank you for this! As a fellow suit-wearing lady, I was 100% on board from the title, but “My biggest fear buying a suit was that I’d waste hundreds of dollars and look ridiculous. Not because women in suits look ridiculous – they look amazing – but because I did not deserve it.” hit me right in the center of my core. I know that feeling really well, thank you for putting it in words!
P.S. I bought my suit, totally custom-made(!!!), from Crown Tailors for around $600. It was a huge splurge for me, but it looks SO GOOD and fits SO WELL that I wear it to every single business event and it’s absolutely been worth it. They’re based in Thailand, but do US and world “tours” for fittings, so if they’re in your area, I seriously recommend them. They were very nice to me as a scared, little baby butch and it meant a lot.
Oh, and congrats on the Nebula! You are my hero!
Custom suits are a very nice thing! I thoroughly recommend this. Even moreso as a non-fashionable person, having a tailor literally construct clothes that are specifically for me did so much to make me feel comfortable in formalwear. Definitely consider this if you can afford one (and they can be cheaper than you think!)
Agreed 100% on all points. I’ve tried on off the rack suits and felt like a horrible, misshapen lump, but once I got my custom one, I was ready to conquer the world with my dapper CEO powers.
$600 is not tooooo bad. Also I am more gainfully employed now, so I do plan on heading down that road soon. So glad you liked the essay!
Ah, thanks for replying! *fans self excitedly while trying to play it cool* Your short story was really great and actually made me call my brother just to let him know I love him and if he dies, he’s not allowed to haunt me.
I agree that $600 for a custom suit was a super good deal, which was why I finally took the plunge. It really did make me feel more adult AND more “myself,” which more girly business wear doesn’t do. Plus, the more ladies in suits, the better! The world can always be more dapper.
I loved this! What an excellent recounting of your journey. I love fashion, but the “skinny white lady smokes nonchalantly in vintage jeans” thing that’s so in right now is intensely boring to me. I want to see people who use fashion for real!
Unfortunately, though, the links seem to be formatted incorrectly. They’re showing up after the address of the Toast page in the address bar, which throws a 404 error.
Should be working now!
I will confess to a deep love of basically all fashion regardless how how skinny or unskinny or which gender, but I am also very glad to have found a better niche for myself in it
Ahhhh! I love this! Hurray for posts about fashion that aren’t just designer dresses and heels. Not that I don’t love designer dresses and heels, but there’s just so much more out there. Thank you, Meghan, for sharing your story and the photos.
Have any Toasties purchased something from Saint Harridan? I threw some money at their Kickstarter, but am waiting for my body to decide on a shape before I invest in a suit for myself.
I got a suit through the kickstarter campaign. I really like it…but between ordering it and getting it I lost/redistributed a whole heap of weight so I think it’s going to be a loss as it’s not something that can be fixed with tailoring. I should probably sell it (?) but I don’t know what the market is for small-ish ladies suiting. Their shirt I had tailored a little in the body (because the neck and sleeves were perfect and that’s always the hardest for me) and it’s great.
I am fairly sure the market is right here, in these comments. People, start bidding.
That’s a thing? Sure, it can be a thing. Suit in charcoal grey: jacket is 40S, pants are 32 (unhemmed). I have several suits now (my style is slim-fit grandpa, not gonna lie) so if this will fit someone, please let me know. It should go to a good lady-suit-home.
you could also try the sharepin. I got rid of some things to a good home through that a while back.
I have! I ordered one of their suits when their pop-up shop came to town (which was a great experience: they were really lovely, and my “maybe I’m not butch enough to pull this off” anxiety dissipated the moment I walked in the door). It’s beautiful, and I’m wearing it for the first time tomorrow, if it’s cool enough to wear a suit. I’ll report back if anyone who sees me actually swoons.
Please report back, anyway! PICS!
This was great! And now to read your work and that of Alice’s!
You will not be sorry! Both Meg & Alice are UTTERLY BRILLIANT.
This is so great it makes me kind of weepy.
I wholeheartedly approve of all of this – the suits, the 1998 Gap tank tops, all of it. I wish I had a reason to buy a suit. The closest I come is a cropped jacket and palazzo pants for work, but that is pretty femme.
“I was surrounded by fellow nerds decked out in every fabulous ray of the geek rainbow.”
Dying of envy.
buy yourself a suit. Just do it! Also you should check out a (progressive) science fiction convention – so many fabulous nerds
I might have to do that. I also recommend Nordstrom tailoring for any kind of clothing; my local Nordstrom has always done an excellent job (and they sometimes can do a super-fast turnaround too).
her sole wardrobe priority is maintaining the structural integrity of her Gap tank tops, which she bought in Orange County in 1998
Yay, I am not alone in the universe!
(This is a delightful piece and I love the picture of the three of you so much!!)
I am really enjoying how many people relate to Jen in this essay
Butch suiting is my favourite, favourite thing.
Here’s how to pick a tie to match an unusual hair colour, I have matched a lot of pink hair in my time.
Your tie needs to match or play on a colour element of one other part of your outfit. That’s it that’s all, go bananas. Your tie is a contrasting-and-enhancing colour pop to the rest of your suit, but your hair is actually the focus of your outfit, because people prioritize your hair when looking at you, then your tie when looking at your suit (sometimes your shoes).
To match a tie to your hair colour, pick a tie that has a nice pattern, and have the pattern be in the colour from your outfit you want to highlight – in this case, fuschia or hot pink. Then have the secondary colour in the pattern pull out the tone of your suit or shirt. I like to match the suit, because I like making the shirt my “background colour.”
For a charcoal suit, you can pick pretty well any pink-on-gray tie and it’ll look good. If it’s a knit or silk finish, it will contrast nicely with the matte wool surface of the suiting.
oh man THANK YOU. I had suspected this might be the case? But I got nervous.
🙂 Butch and genderqueer and female-playing-with-masculine-but-no-pantsuits-suiting: my favourite thing.
The other tip is: cropped, well-fitted pants and a pair of heels worn with good waistcoat = instantly genderfucked yet perfect outfit.
Also, I just read and really enjoyed “Swift, Brutal Retaliation”!
damn, thank you!
Like all great pleasures, dress can be a profoundly dangerous thing. It can show you to yourself, and reveal you to the world. My biggest fear buying a suit was that I’d waste hundreds of dollars and look ridiculous. Not because women in suits look ridiculous – they look amazing – but because I did not deserve it.
This is beautiful and resonates deeply with me. For me it was going in the opposite direction — accepting that there was such a thing as being femme and that I could do that, that being my queer self *and* wearing dresses was ten thousand times better than doing either one of those things while suppressing the other. It’s fucking magical when you can look in a mirror and really recognize yourself in it.
Yes, I totally feel femmes on this front. In fact, I felt it so hard I though I was femme, because fuck doing what you’re supposed to do. But that’s the great thing about queerness: you’re never doing what you’re supposed to do
Hear, hear.
Not because women in suits look ridiculous – they look amazing – but because I did not deserve it.
Yup, cuts right to the heart of anxieties around fashion, and you’re right that this is part of what makes style—and the narratives around embracing or rejecting it—so powerful. Well observed!
Also, and this is the highest compliment in my repertoire: Meghan, you are wearing that suit.
Oh man I can’t get through these comments without blushing — but yeah, until I wrote this essay I couldn’t put my finger on that feeling either
This is awesome. Thanks for rocking the suit.
OH MY GOD HI EVERYBODY my girlfriend texted me to tell me this was up. I’m working but want to say a quick hello and thank you for all your kind words more soon
I came here to write about how much this moved me, personally, and I saw that I was not the only one! Thanks, Meghan, for this essay. Thanks, Toast, for running it. Resonated for me on so many levels. Brought tears to my eyes, even as I laughed at the funny bits.
awwww haddayr ahhhhh glad you liked
Thank you for this amazing article. As a femme who *loves* dapper, besuited butches, your story of discovery, liberation and joy is deeply moving. x x
Terrific piece, Meghan!
One of the businesses I Kiva Zipped (i.e. microloaned to) a year or so ago is Kipper Clothiers in San Francisco. Their goal is to make exactly this an easier experience.
I love Kipper Clothiers! I backed their Kickstarter and got my suit a few weeks ago and it’s AMAZING. And the proprietors are super, super nice, and wonderful to work with, and I’m stealing their tailor.
You look amazing and this deeply struck a chord. Hope to read more by you in the future!
thank you for the links!
I’ve been thinking lately about how when I was a teenager, I wanted more than anything to be like 1930s Cary Grant, and still want to emulate that sort of masculine person, so why is my closet so full of blouses and skirts and dresses but nothing more butch. I mean, I like my dresses a lot and sometimes enjoy the gender performance of wearing them, but in my heart of hearts I want to wear suits and ties, too. I just don’t know have a single clue how to choose clothes. I mean, even if I wanted to dress more Slacker or more Femme, I don’t even know how to wear a basic band t-shirt. I’m constantly stuck in Sitcom Mom Classic style, because it’s easy and basic and bland.
So anyway, there was a lot in here that I recognized and I really appreciate the links to help me learn a bit more, maybe figure out how to establish my own personal style.
GO FOR IT. So worth it, let me tell you.
I hope so! It’s just so hard to know where to start when I haven’t even managed to pick up basic fashion sense that I was socialized to. 😀
For cheaper dapper dressing — H&M men’s section has a lot of small-cut, very basic, hipsterish menswear.
Thanks! I think an H&M opened in my town a year or so ago, so I’ll try to check them out. I’m a little nervous about trying men’s cuts because I’m not shaped right for women’s (long torso, broad shoulders), but also clearly not for men’s either (boobs:waist:hips ratio is pretty curvy). But I haven’t gone shopping in almost two years anyway, so what can it hurt to try, since my wardrobe is getting pretty threadbare anyway? 🙂
Yes! I am right now wearing their men’s super skinny jeans on my 5’4″ frame of womanly hips and little legs. Twenty quid in London. and if you are in London, the Oxford Circus H^M does free in-store hemming!
(bi lady here who recently discovered how fucking hot she is with a beard … who would describe herself as generally femme but has just realised that in addition to men’s jeans she is also wearing an oversized lumberjack shirt and brown 4 hole docs. so … ???)
You can take a lot of the advice aimed at dapper cis men and adapt it to your own wardrobe! Fit is something that you’ll need to work around depending on your body type, but the basic concepts are the same. Try websites like Put This On, The Art of Manliness’s dress and grooming section, The Dandy Portrait Project (http://dandyportraits.blogspot.com/), The Modest Man (themodestman.com: nice, clean fashion and tips for short guys, so it translates pretty well to women’s choices), or just start using Pinterest to see what you like and if a style emerges from the fashion things you’ve pinned.
Making changes to my wardrobe has made me so happy. Lots of button downs, chinos, suits, ties. Getting random compliments from grandmotherly-types out at the theater that I’m a dressed “handsomely” are TOTALLY worth it. 😀
I crave button-down shirts so much! I had to stop wearing them a few years back because I got too fat in the arms or something, and women’s shirts are never broad enough in the shoulders (or if they are, they’re not fitted at all anywhere else, which just looks sloppy and is uncomfortable to wear). My wardrobe staples in my early 20s were button-downs and jeans and crewneck sweaters.
Anyway, thank you for more tips! My big problem with fashion is seeing something and thinking “I like that look” but having no clue how to split it into parts to recreate it. It’s the same thing with art, which is frustrating because I love doing art stuff, but there’s this huge block on separating out things I like into steps/individual components, and then incorporating those components into my own work. (I had this problem with advanced math and physics, too. Always trouble seeing the trees for the forest.)
Hello shoulder friend! You might want to look at Androgyny shirting (http://www.wearandrogyny.com/) as I think they’ll run slightly wider in the shoulders but without the billowing everywhere else. I just looked for shoulder measurements and they don’t appear on their sizing chart, but I’m sure you could drop them a note and see if that have that info at hand. I haven’t actually tried their shirts (they run a little more than I’d like to spend) but their fit based on their models is like my platonic idea of shirts.
I liked Swift, Brutal Retaliation quite a bit. I felt so bad for Brigid, only getting half a steak because she’s “fat.” Which related kinda sorta to this essay too, because I am a femme who would like to be femmier but finding great, affordable, clothes for fat femmes is so hard and depressing that I usually end up wearing whatever Giant Tiger crap.
Modcloth? They have a lot of pretty, feminine, plus size clothes. I dunno how ‘affordable’ it is — I feel like their clothes are kinda expensive, but I am a grad student, so I have a different conception of “expensive,” which is mostly “not the shirts I found for a dollar.”
I love all of this so much and especially the concept of science fiction’s conservative grandpas which is exactly what they are.
to be perfectly accurate, there are some damn conservative whippersnappers too, but oh man those grandpas are a whole ‘nother level
I…I want a suit now.
Oh, oh, oh, I am so late here and I am also so filled with envy. Straight lady here, with boyfriend and everything, who loves wearing menswear (unhappily with the wrong figure for this). I tend to wear jacket and tie combined with a skirt – which has owned me the only compliment ever from my extremely manly boss – or jacket , tie and trousers. I need a proper suit. I want your fabulousness.
I am also envious — I am more-often-than-not attracted to men, and I have a fairly femme style generally (I’d say hard-edged femme-ish, maybe), but I would love to be able to wear more “menswear” clothes. With enormous boobs (HH-cup) and hips, and a 13-ish inch differential between chest and waist (I’m quite hourglassed), it would just require…so much money on alterations. Sooooo much. I mean, I can’t even wear women’s button-down shirts and have them close over my chest without being several sizes too large and baggy on the rest of me. I can’t even wear non-V or scoop-neck shirts, honestly — I would never look right with a buttoned-all-the-way shirt and a tie.
Sort of same figure on me. I find that a waistcoat can help, with a classic woman’s fit (ie with a fitted waist etc) – it will conceal large parts of the shirt and it will show off your waist. If one wears something with at “manly” fit, it will make one look barrel-shaped… This is also partly why I tend to combine it with a skirt. Go for principal boy rather than stunning, gay bloke (alas!). Shirts probably wouldn’t be too expensive to have altered (nor would waistcoats, I believe, as long as you find one that will accommodate the HH) – also, have you tried the sort-of-tailor-made-online shirt shops?
Two things. One: I love your short stories. Two: you look amazing in a suit. I always look like a complete Melvin in one, so I’m jelly 🙂
This is the suit-buying advice I’ve been waiting for. Top Shop! I’ll do it.
yes!
1. You were a great scrum captain. Not intimidating, but welcoming. I appreciated it.
2. I’m glad you found a formal-wear option that made you feel right. You look happy, and hot too!
Hey Zach! Lol I wondered if a Wes rugger would hit the comments — hope it was clear I was making fun of my own ridiculous gender expectations there. And thank you!
this was just a delight to read–I’m not at all surprised you got nominated for a writing award (& that picture of the three of you is adorable).
Thank you thank you thank you (fast forwards through about 81 more thank yous) thank you for this article and THE LINKS. I’ve been leaning more and more toward menswear in formal situations over the years, but am usually too full of worries about terrible fit/unworthiness/looking queerer than I am (wtf)/etc to actually wear something that I like. This article has filled me with confidence in at least 95% of these areas and now that I have a starting point for finding clothes that fit I will probably be unstoppable. Literally no one will be able to stop me from going out and buying/wearing ALL the menswear.
DO IT. Also, as a Professional Blogger I am alllll about the links. Actually sad I hadn’t bookmarked the specific ones I used better.
You look amazing! I’ve always loved suits, on men, on women. Nothing quite so wonderful as a well-tailored suit. I now want to go out and get myself a suit.
Also congrats for the nomination.
You look fantastic in the suit, and this was a really enjoyable read.
It is a fantastic suit. ALSO the hair.
Thank you for writing so eloquently about the transformational power of clothes. I am not a feminine woman. I made my peace with this in my teens, then came to be confident in it, but it took a lot longer to understand that I was still allowed to care about the way I looked and what I wore – that paying attention to that sort of thing wasn’t a retrograde step in figuring out what was right for me but a step forward. (Internalised misogyny, hello.)
The other thing I wanted to mention while I am here is that what really helped me was making my own clothes. I am short and have huge hips, which is not the figure menswear is cut for, and it was a revelation to figure out that this here sewing machine I was using for LARP costuming could totally be deployed for regular clothes. Proper formalwear tailoring is still beyond me, but I now have a burgeoning wardrobe of smart-as menswear-style workwear that actually fits in all the places and it is the best thing.
I realise sewing is not for everyone for multifarious reasons, but it is an option people don’t always think of and rarely raised as an answer to people’s problems finding well-fitted gender-nonconforming clothing. I shall get off my soapbox now.
(Addendum: I love my job, but I slightly wish I wasn’t client-facing and could have pink hair.)
Oh man huzzah for sewing — also how amazing is it that I wish my mom had taught me more about sewing so I could alter men’s clothes for me
It is a fantastic suit. ALSO the hair.
Thank you for writing so eloquently about the transformational power of clothes. I am not a feminine woman. I made my peace with this in my teens, then came to be confident in it, but it took a lot longer to understand that I was still allowed to care about the way I looked and what I wore – that paying attention to that sort of thing wasn't a retrograde step in figuring out what was right for me but a step forward. (Internalised misogyny, hello.)
The other thing I wanted to mention while I am here is that what really helped me was making my own clothes. I am short and have huge hips, which is not the figure menswear is cut for, and it was a revelation to figure out that this here sewing machine I was using for LARP costuming could totally be deployed for regular clothes. Proper formalwear tailoring is still beyond me, but I now have a burgeoning wardrobe of smart-as menswear-style workwear that actually fits in all the places and it is the best thing.
I realise sewing is not for everyone for multifarious reasons, but it is an option people don't always think of and rarely raised as an answer to people's problems finding well-fitted gender-nonconforming clothing. I shall get off my soapbox now.
(Addendum: I love my job, but I slightly wish I wasn't client-facing and could have pink hair.)
This is all so great. I especially love this sentence: “At the moment, I’m dwelling in the negative capability of my own gender trouble.” You’ve inspired me to wear my own dapper suit with a little extra negative capability in my step.
Also, your suit is fabulous!
Omg, I love the phrase “a little extra negative capability in my step!” Also I wish everyone would post pictures of them looking awesome in suits here.
you could also try the sharepin. I got rid of some things to a good home through that a while back.
I cherished this! What an incredible relating of your voyage. I adore style, yet the “thin white woman smokes apathetically in vintage pants” thing that is so in at this moment is seriously exhausting to me