Transvestites and Fashion
By Petal Jeffrey
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Why do so many transvestites enjoy dressing forty or fifty years behind the times? Why do we choose what style of clothing we wear? Petal Jeffrey goes in search of the answers.
Her skirt brushes her calves as she steps onto the dance floor. Quite demure, really. Then, to the pounding rock 'n' roll beat, her partner sets her spinning. As the skirt spins, its hem flies upwards revealing stocking tops and a glimpse of suspender.
She could be a 1950s teenager, hair fastened in a pony tail. Her mother probably thinks she's elsewhere. She could, equally, be a transvestite forty years on... In that case, she probably has no pony tail - it's not a hair style well adapted to a tranny wig.
Not that the presence or absence of pony tails is the best clue as to whether this is the fifties, or a dance attended by present day transvestites.
Today, the TVs will almost certainly be wearing a greater variety of styles than real girls gathered together at any age. They are likely to be dressed for a variety of occasions: debutante ballgowns rubbing hems with rock 'n' roll skirts. There will be fashions from different eras - the calf-brushing styles of the fifties swirling cool air about the thigh-high minis from the late sixties.
Those minis notwithstanding, an email from Rosalind (Leeds) would have surprised few when it began: "Let's have more 50's pictures... I have fond memories of those fabulous starched petticoats we used to wear." Nor are they just memories, as "you only have to go to any transvestites party to see acres of petticoats worn by the men, underskirts that real women haven't been seen in for years and years."
What Rosalind sees in Leeds seems much the same as I see in London. There are, however, some who feel uneasy about this living in the past, whether apparent or real. Neither are the fifties the most reassuring decade for transvestites to choose. The most serious unease stems from the position of women in society during the fifties. First, though, a glance at the forties...
The very full skirts and masses of petticoat in which many transvestites like to luxuriate in were, in part, a reaction to a period of austerity. During the war, and for some time after, clothing was rationed. Styles had to conform to severe utility standards. Every inch of cloth was precious, and there was little to spare for frills.
Nor were just frills in short supply. I have close at hand, for example, the Daily Mirror for January 12th 1946. The war had been over for five months. There is a brief story headlined: "THE SWIM-OUT-OF-IT SWIM SUIT"
"The Moonlight Buoy swim suit, which the swimmer can easily shed in the water and which will float by itself, made its appearance in the New York shops yesterday.
"It consists of gaberdine pants and brassiere. The brassiere is tied to the pants and both are kept afloat by a cork buckle."
Interesting as the Moonlight Boy swimsuit may be, the remarkable and significant part of the story is relegated to the final paragraph.
"British manufacturers have no plans for putting out these 'moonlight buoy' swimsuits. In fact, they say, British girls will be lucky if they can get hold of any kind of costume."
No doubt, the public had to put up with a great deal because of the war. Probably most were unsurprised when rationing continued a few months after the end of hostilities. But, when the months of peace turned into years, and clothing was still rationed, few can have been content with the situation...
So, when the restrictions were dropped a new look with masses of petticoat was surely inevitable. Nor is it surprising that that such a mass of frills appeals to transvestites. Feminine is what we like, and what could be more feminine? With that, however, we approach the area that makes some of us uneasy.
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