I dithered over whether or not to take over the FOT with capelet process in order to not overwhelm inboxes with two mailings in a day, but came down on the side of selfishly wanting to hear from you.
So please tell me about an outfit you wore that lives in your memory as splendid, as good, as affirming of yourself. Tell me what you took pleasure in curating on your body, or having someone else do for you to astonishing effect. Or if dressing up’s not your thing, tell me about a garment that spells comfort for you like no other, that you love deeply.
When Marguerite came over to the UK for three weeks, when we were first dating, we went to a Beethoven concert. I wore a suit, a nice green, good cut that didn’t make me feel like too much meat in too little space.
So it’s a brilliant concert and of course I’m paying no attention because she’s RIGHT THERE, AMAL. She’s not on a screen, she’s right there and she’s real and I love her so much and we’ve both been through Hell and now we’re in this amazing city listening to this amazing music together.
So we leave and it’s tipping it down and because this is the first time we’ve been together we are literally forgetting to do things like eat. It is maybe 11? And we’re starving and there’s this little hole in the wall where we sit and eat amazing Italian food. But to get there we need to go out into the rain and she’s in this gorgeous outfit and I offer her my jacket and she says YES. And I have this amazing photo of her grinning, wrapped up in my jacket, delighting in the fact someone cares enough about her to do that and I’m over the moon because I GOT TO DO THAT and she’s RIGHT THERE.
I have been really struggling with finding masculine clothing (vests, suits), that would fit a body with feminine curves. I either feel like my curves are hidden, or the garment is uncomfortably tight.
In parallel, I have recently come down with a spinal condition that will curve my spine over time.
I watched a costuming video, and learned that the seamstress in the video has scoliosis. She has been hand-making her clothes so they actually fit her. I watched another video of hers, where they teach the audience how to select "men's" thrift jackets, so that they can be easily tailored to fit a body with more curves.
This felt like self-love in a deep way. We can get our clothing tailored to *actually fit us* instead of desperately trying to fit our clothing.
I have been learning to sew since. I am still in the mending part of my journey, but I feel affirmed + empowered. If something does not fit me, I do not blame my body. My clothing exists to serve me.
So, as a closeted trans teen, I hated my prom dress without understanding why. I knew I wanted to wear a suit but did not know how to say that. Later, when graduating from university as an openly trans adult, I wore this DELIGHTFUL blazer with gold sequins all over it, a dusky gold button down shirt, and a bow tie. Even though I was deeply depressed at the time, it was still a very special graduation ceremony because of that outfit. I still have the blazer and am very fond of it.
This year I made myself an amazing evening gown from dragon scale fabric that is silky and smooth. It is a rich deep blue with turquoise and black details. The fabric was manufactured for swimsuits but the flow and hand of it was too amazing to use only a small piece. It was intended to be my awards ceremony gown for the 2019-2020 awards cycle and, well, it’s been very comfortable to wear at home! I did get to wear it to the World Fantasy Awards, which was fun. It is one of my favorite things to wear.
I don’t generally get fancy with outfits, as I’m always focused on how a fabric feels against my skin (this is a frustrating eternal trial & error with new clothes), but! I have an overfervent love for waffle knit sweatshirts or sweaters. That is prime coziness to me. Also, I adore waxed canvas coats. So basically, my leaning is the garments that evoke autumnal hygge.
For more than 30 years, I lived with hand-me-down clothes (my fashion choices are more about what's bequeathed to me rather than a personal sense of style) but last year, I bought a jacket from Uniqlo with faux fur inside and it's nice and warm at the air-conditioned office (before COVID).
My friends had a murder mystery dinner party and they asked us what characters we wanted to play. I asked them to surprise me. They offered me to play a Russian spy / ballerina, who was a woman, and in fact had committed the murder.
I didn't give it much thought, until my lovely partner helped me pick out a dress. All of a sudden I was seeing myself in a completely different way -- wrapped, tall... beautiful. I went to that party, I acted the heck out of my character, and I got away with pretend murder. It was not just fun, it was... like opening up a door that I'd always held closed.
That short, slinky dress is still the outfit that gave me the most pleasure to wear!
The vest I wore to get married in (21 years ago tomorrow!) - it's gorgeous, blue silk with lighter blue flower vines and gold dragons. We picked out the fabric and buttons and had it custom-made for me by the partner of the seamstress who made my wife's wedding dress. Tied to one of the buttons is a small khamsa (Hand of Fatima), given to me as a good luck charm at the wedding of two friends. The groom at that wedding was wearing his own vest made by the same woman who made mine. My vest still fits, and I wear it every year at our big fancy company party.
My wedding suit was an inexpensive linen formal suit, but it fit well enough, and that was what mattered. We were married by a local justice with a few family members on hand. After the ceremony, we took photos on the grounds of an artists' retreat full of neoclassical columns, marble fountains, and ivied pergolas.
On the way back, we stopped at the mall. I think my in-laws needed to pick up something. The arcade was open--and they had just acquired a DDR 3rd Mix machine. We didn't have a traditional first dance at a reception, but damned if we didn't dance like crazy in our wedding outfits to "Butterfly," "Drop the Bomb," and "Mr. Wonderful."
In December I went to a Christmas party, and beforehand I was dashing around hating everything in my closet (as happens far more often than I'd like). I wanted to wear a lovely black velvet jacket I had recently acquired, which has a wonderfully streamlined masculine cut (a thing I glory in after 15 years of trying to find jackets cut simply but shaped for me, a person with curves), and none of my shirts really worked under it. I was so sad! I must have tried on half a dozen or more shirts and none were RIGHT, my household gradually joining watching me tear through my wardrobe. Eventually my housemate started raiding her wardrobe, though we aren't the same size, and she brought out this amazing $15 white shirt from Amazon, with a loose criss-cross neckline that cross more than halfway down the shirt and keep going to the hem of the shirt, flowy in a bounded way because of the way the hem pulls both sides back against the hip. It's rather risque & seems like it is more revealing than it actually is. It worked beautifully. I put it on and instantly went from frustrated and unhappy and disliking my whole being and my relationship with clothes to delighted and in some disbelief that /I/ could look like /that/.
We mussed up my hair and I put on winged liner and red lipstick and they helped me decide to wear a dangling earring in one ear and I have never in my life felt so glamorously queer, so fiercely insouciant, so glitteringly sharp. It was incredible. I want to curate my wardrobe to evoke that experience as often as possible, and am still reeling a bit at the idea that it's possible. It's not how I see myself at all, but apparently maybe it can be under the right circumstances!
Fun timing: this morning I ordered a 4 inch (almost 11cm) red resin crow skull necklace specifically to pair with that outfit.
I enjoy dressing up, but nothing that quite fits splendid or astonishing. HOWEVER, my very favorite comfort item of clothing is an alpaca wool zip up hoodie that is completely shapeless and very warm. I practically live in it at home during winter.
1) the most spectacular purple opera coat, purchased at a local vintage store about ten years ago. Big full-cut sleeves, big collar, length so perfect it seems like it was made for me alone. If the wind is just right, it billows when I walk. I don't wear it very often, but when I do - I feel like ALL THE SUPERHEROES. I swear it's magic. (Bonus: it has *pockets*!)
2) a mini-dress (though "elongated tank top" would be closer to the mark), bought on a whim in the fall of my second year of university, worn to that year's fall semi-formal dance. I had struggled most of my life to that point with feeling gawky, awkward, and plain - still do, if I'm honest - but when I put that dress on, I *felt* gorgeous and powerful. The days are long gone that I could still fit into it... but I still have it, as a reminder. :)
When I was at university, there was a black tie ball every other year, which fell on my second and fourth years. I changed my name and came out as nonbinary in my third year, and was uncertain, for the fourth year ball, what nonbinary black tie meant for me. I settled on the skirt version of this dress: https://lolibrary.org/items/indie-haenuli-the-little-prince-jsk with a shirt, bow tie, and tuxedo jacket. I braided my hair. I really felt like the best version of myself.
There was once a pleated skirt my mom sewed for me. I loved this skirt more than anything else my mom ever sewed. It was white with giant polka dots of all colors. Anxious to get me, the tomboy, to wear girly things, and taking advantage my love of polka dots, my mom must’ve overcome her own hatred of sewing to make me this skirt. (The things you realize when you're your mom's age and have things of your own that you detest...) Among other things, I've always thought of my mom as a recovering tailor. Having scored high in the national entrance exams for university, she was guaranteed a much envied spot in the top-ranking university in the country. Except, her father refused to pay the meager attendance fee. So she earned a merit scholarship. He refused to allow her to go, because the university was co-ed. A female teacher visited my grandfather to beg him to allow my mom to attend university. He wouldn't budge. Plus, it was time for my mom to get married. (Years later, I point out the fatal flaw in my mom’s plan of persuasion: she should’ve persuaded a male teacher to advocate for her!) And so my mom didn't go to university and she didn't have the career she wanted. Instead, she settled for vocational school, where she specialized in...yes, tailoring. I learned how to darn my own socks (something I still do) and sew my own buttons (somehow less satisfying than darning socks) at an early age and knew not to ask my mom to do these things for me. When she was old enough, I taught my sister. Now the only memory of that pleated, polka dotted skirt my mom sewed for me is in a photograph. I'm on my grandfather's puke-green sofa, turning like a crazed monkey to get the skirt to float up up up. It's obscene how my bare legs and my panties show, and I'm glad for it when I imagine how uncomfortable I must’ve made my grandfather. It's a small victory, this little revenge of mine, though in the picture I'm oblivious to my own power to disturb and agitate. It's nothing compared to my mother's revenge: raising two daughters who went on to become scientists.
I have never felt more confident than in a tailcoat, t-shirt, skinny jeans, New Rock boots (like all the 2000s Doctor Who villains) and tons of face glitter.
When Marguerite came over to the UK for three weeks, when we were first dating, we went to a Beethoven concert. I wore a suit, a nice green, good cut that didn’t make me feel like too much meat in too little space.
So it’s a brilliant concert and of course I’m paying no attention because she’s RIGHT THERE, AMAL. She’s not on a screen, she’s right there and she’s real and I love her so much and we’ve both been through Hell and now we’re in this amazing city listening to this amazing music together.
So we leave and it’s tipping it down and because this is the first time we’ve been together we are literally forgetting to do things like eat. It is maybe 11? And we’re starving and there’s this little hole in the wall where we sit and eat amazing Italian food. But to get there we need to go out into the rain and she’s in this gorgeous outfit and I offer her my jacket and she says YES. And I have this amazing photo of her grinning, wrapped up in my jacket, delighting in the fact someone cares enough about her to do that and I’m over the moon because I GOT TO DO THAT and she’s RIGHT THERE.
And that’s why I love that suit:)
I have been really struggling with finding masculine clothing (vests, suits), that would fit a body with feminine curves. I either feel like my curves are hidden, or the garment is uncomfortably tight.
In parallel, I have recently come down with a spinal condition that will curve my spine over time.
I watched a costuming video, and learned that the seamstress in the video has scoliosis. She has been hand-making her clothes so they actually fit her. I watched another video of hers, where they teach the audience how to select "men's" thrift jackets, so that they can be easily tailored to fit a body with more curves.
This felt like self-love in a deep way. We can get our clothing tailored to *actually fit us* instead of desperately trying to fit our clothing.
I have been learning to sew since. I am still in the mending part of my journey, but I feel affirmed + empowered. If something does not fit me, I do not blame my body. My clothing exists to serve me.
So, as a closeted trans teen, I hated my prom dress without understanding why. I knew I wanted to wear a suit but did not know how to say that. Later, when graduating from university as an openly trans adult, I wore this DELIGHTFUL blazer with gold sequins all over it, a dusky gold button down shirt, and a bow tie. Even though I was deeply depressed at the time, it was still a very special graduation ceremony because of that outfit. I still have the blazer and am very fond of it.
This year I made myself an amazing evening gown from dragon scale fabric that is silky and smooth. It is a rich deep blue with turquoise and black details. The fabric was manufactured for swimsuits but the flow and hand of it was too amazing to use only a small piece. It was intended to be my awards ceremony gown for the 2019-2020 awards cycle and, well, it’s been very comfortable to wear at home! I did get to wear it to the World Fantasy Awards, which was fun. It is one of my favorite things to wear.
I don’t generally get fancy with outfits, as I’m always focused on how a fabric feels against my skin (this is a frustrating eternal trial & error with new clothes), but! I have an overfervent love for waffle knit sweatshirts or sweaters. That is prime coziness to me. Also, I adore waxed canvas coats. So basically, my leaning is the garments that evoke autumnal hygge.
For more than 30 years, I lived with hand-me-down clothes (my fashion choices are more about what's bequeathed to me rather than a personal sense of style) but last year, I bought a jacket from Uniqlo with faux fur inside and it's nice and warm at the air-conditioned office (before COVID).
My friends had a murder mystery dinner party and they asked us what characters we wanted to play. I asked them to surprise me. They offered me to play a Russian spy / ballerina, who was a woman, and in fact had committed the murder.
I didn't give it much thought, until my lovely partner helped me pick out a dress. All of a sudden I was seeing myself in a completely different way -- wrapped, tall... beautiful. I went to that party, I acted the heck out of my character, and I got away with pretend murder. It was not just fun, it was... like opening up a door that I'd always held closed.
That short, slinky dress is still the outfit that gave me the most pleasure to wear!
The vest I wore to get married in (21 years ago tomorrow!) - it's gorgeous, blue silk with lighter blue flower vines and gold dragons. We picked out the fabric and buttons and had it custom-made for me by the partner of the seamstress who made my wife's wedding dress. Tied to one of the buttons is a small khamsa (Hand of Fatima), given to me as a good luck charm at the wedding of two friends. The groom at that wedding was wearing his own vest made by the same woman who made mine. My vest still fits, and I wear it every year at our big fancy company party.
My wedding suit was an inexpensive linen formal suit, but it fit well enough, and that was what mattered. We were married by a local justice with a few family members on hand. After the ceremony, we took photos on the grounds of an artists' retreat full of neoclassical columns, marble fountains, and ivied pergolas.
On the way back, we stopped at the mall. I think my in-laws needed to pick up something. The arcade was open--and they had just acquired a DDR 3rd Mix machine. We didn't have a traditional first dance at a reception, but damned if we didn't dance like crazy in our wedding outfits to "Butterfly," "Drop the Bomb," and "Mr. Wonderful."
In December I went to a Christmas party, and beforehand I was dashing around hating everything in my closet (as happens far more often than I'd like). I wanted to wear a lovely black velvet jacket I had recently acquired, which has a wonderfully streamlined masculine cut (a thing I glory in after 15 years of trying to find jackets cut simply but shaped for me, a person with curves), and none of my shirts really worked under it. I was so sad! I must have tried on half a dozen or more shirts and none were RIGHT, my household gradually joining watching me tear through my wardrobe. Eventually my housemate started raiding her wardrobe, though we aren't the same size, and she brought out this amazing $15 white shirt from Amazon, with a loose criss-cross neckline that cross more than halfway down the shirt and keep going to the hem of the shirt, flowy in a bounded way because of the way the hem pulls both sides back against the hip. It's rather risque & seems like it is more revealing than it actually is. It worked beautifully. I put it on and instantly went from frustrated and unhappy and disliking my whole being and my relationship with clothes to delighted and in some disbelief that /I/ could look like /that/.
We mussed up my hair and I put on winged liner and red lipstick and they helped me decide to wear a dangling earring in one ear and I have never in my life felt so glamorously queer, so fiercely insouciant, so glitteringly sharp. It was incredible. I want to curate my wardrobe to evoke that experience as often as possible, and am still reeling a bit at the idea that it's possible. It's not how I see myself at all, but apparently maybe it can be under the right circumstances!
Fun timing: this morning I ordered a 4 inch (almost 11cm) red resin crow skull necklace specifically to pair with that outfit.
I enjoy dressing up, but nothing that quite fits splendid or astonishing. HOWEVER, my very favorite comfort item of clothing is an alpaca wool zip up hoodie that is completely shapeless and very warm. I practically live in it at home during winter.
Two garments:
1) the most spectacular purple opera coat, purchased at a local vintage store about ten years ago. Big full-cut sleeves, big collar, length so perfect it seems like it was made for me alone. If the wind is just right, it billows when I walk. I don't wear it very often, but when I do - I feel like ALL THE SUPERHEROES. I swear it's magic. (Bonus: it has *pockets*!)
2) a mini-dress (though "elongated tank top" would be closer to the mark), bought on a whim in the fall of my second year of university, worn to that year's fall semi-formal dance. I had struggled most of my life to that point with feeling gawky, awkward, and plain - still do, if I'm honest - but when I put that dress on, I *felt* gorgeous and powerful. The days are long gone that I could still fit into it... but I still have it, as a reminder. :)
I never commented on last week’s thread!
When I was at university, there was a black tie ball every other year, which fell on my second and fourth years. I changed my name and came out as nonbinary in my third year, and was uncertain, for the fourth year ball, what nonbinary black tie meant for me. I settled on the skirt version of this dress: https://lolibrary.org/items/indie-haenuli-the-little-prince-jsk with a shirt, bow tie, and tuxedo jacket. I braided my hair. I really felt like the best version of myself.
There was once a pleated skirt my mom sewed for me. I loved this skirt more than anything else my mom ever sewed. It was white with giant polka dots of all colors. Anxious to get me, the tomboy, to wear girly things, and taking advantage my love of polka dots, my mom must’ve overcome her own hatred of sewing to make me this skirt. (The things you realize when you're your mom's age and have things of your own that you detest...) Among other things, I've always thought of my mom as a recovering tailor. Having scored high in the national entrance exams for university, she was guaranteed a much envied spot in the top-ranking university in the country. Except, her father refused to pay the meager attendance fee. So she earned a merit scholarship. He refused to allow her to go, because the university was co-ed. A female teacher visited my grandfather to beg him to allow my mom to attend university. He wouldn't budge. Plus, it was time for my mom to get married. (Years later, I point out the fatal flaw in my mom’s plan of persuasion: she should’ve persuaded a male teacher to advocate for her!) And so my mom didn't go to university and she didn't have the career she wanted. Instead, she settled for vocational school, where she specialized in...yes, tailoring. I learned how to darn my own socks (something I still do) and sew my own buttons (somehow less satisfying than darning socks) at an early age and knew not to ask my mom to do these things for me. When she was old enough, I taught my sister. Now the only memory of that pleated, polka dotted skirt my mom sewed for me is in a photograph. I'm on my grandfather's puke-green sofa, turning like a crazed monkey to get the skirt to float up up up. It's obscene how my bare legs and my panties show, and I'm glad for it when I imagine how uncomfortable I must’ve made my grandfather. It's a small victory, this little revenge of mine, though in the picture I'm oblivious to my own power to disturb and agitate. It's nothing compared to my mother's revenge: raising two daughters who went on to become scientists.
I have never felt more confident than in a tailcoat, t-shirt, skinny jeans, New Rock boots (like all the 2000s Doctor Who villains) and tons of face glitter.
I drafted the pattern for and sewed this one-shoulder linen-rayon dress that's, I mean it just is, awesome. Because SHOULDER.