Dina’s Diner June 3, 2019

A CLOSET FULL OF OLD CLOTHES

Actually quite a bit more than a closetful of old clothes are stored at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. The New York Times had an article about the unofficial collection of American women’s clothing in the April 29, 2019 online edition.

Professor Catherine “Kiki” Smith began collecting and preserving “the kinds of garments generally overlooked or dismissed by museums and collectors of dress, who tend to focus on fashion as an expression of elitism, artistry, aspiration.” The 3,000 pieces in the collection include everyday clothing worn by women in the 20th century. Waitress uniforms, house dresses, aprons, maternity dresses, and a Girl Scout uniform that belonged to poet Sylvia Plath. The Times points out that a few universities have collections of clothing textiles and some museums like New York’s Metropolitan have high fashion collections. The Smith collection is remarkable for its focus on ordinary items.

Imagine owning (and being able to fit into) a genuine vintage waitress uniform, or a nun’s habit, a pretty pinafore, or a girl scout uniform. It’s a crossdresser’s dream wardrobe. Dream on, dearie. It’s all squirreled away in Massachusetts.

Professor Smith began collecting the clothing as a theater professor at the college (not named after her, by the way). She would sift through the clothing donated by alumni and others for use as theater costumes and cull what she saw as historically significant from the piles. Her idea of historically significant, however, were items that told the story of how women lived, worked and played in ordinary circumstances. Over the ensuing forty years, she amassed the giant collection that is housed in a basement storage room at the college. She has petitioned the college for funding to dedicate space and proper preservation safeguards but has been passed over in the budget process.

Professor Smith told the Times, “To put it politely, they were skeptical and worried about the long-term value.” The Times article points out, however, “that while such garments are generally not seen as valuable, when it comes to providing clues to what it meant to be a woman in 20th-century America, they may be worth their weight, if not in gold, at least in semiprecious gems.”

MONTMARTE, RHYMES WITH ART

Michou (center) with performers.

The New York Times had a feature article about Michou, a cabaret owner in the Montmarte section of Paris in the April 1, 2019 edition. Michou is not just a cabaret owner, however. He is the grand dame of French female impersonators and is now 87 years old.

Chez Michou is an old school drag cabaret and watering hole for tourists, the Montmarte locals, and celebrity visitors. Michou seems to have given up performing in drag but still holds court each night in the hotspot he’s performed in or owned for six decades. In his prime, Michou was known as a great Brigitte Bardot impersonator. Based on the Times story, Michou became the RuPaul of France some 60 years ago and remains a well-known public figure from television appearances and his eponymous nightclub. Even at 87 years old and suffering from some ailments, Michou appears vibrant and much younger than his chronological age.

I couldn’t find any photos of Michou from his drag heyday so it’s hard to say how he compared to the real Bardot. The Times article mentions famous impersonations of Maria Callas (the post-war opera singer) and Dalida, an Egyptian chanteuse who was famous in France in the 1960s through the ‘80s. It all seems rather quaint now – a bygone era of fitted gowns, beehive wigs and cigarette smoke. The interior of the club looks cramped and dim and the kind of place you’d expect to see vintage Dietrich come out to sing Falling in Love Again. The present day Chez Michou still seems to offer a classic style of drag show with a combination of flawless beauties and campy costumed production numbers.

Michou cuts an easily recognized figure to this day dressed always in blue. Blue suits, blue shirts, blue neckties, and signature large blue-tinted eyeglasses. Even approaching his 90th birthday, he still has a thick head of white hair that appears to be his own. He told the Times, “They call me the Blue Prince of Montmarte.” Even after all the years – all the decades, really – in the same nightclub he said, “Life will soon be over for me but I can say that I’ve found happiness every single night that I’ve been here.”

HOMELY SEXY

Homely sexy.

I was driving through a quiet residential neighborhood recently when my girl-watching radar set off a series of blip-blip-blip’s. The female subject, still quite far away down the long block, was walking a dog. From the distance I could discern only a feminine outline that included bare legs below gym shorts, and a pleasant shape and sway of movement as the young woman sauntered alongside her pet.

As I got close enough to see better, the young woman was plain rather than pretty but she did have a certain sex appeal with her short-shorts, pale legs and unaffected manner. This is a college town and it is filled with a lot of young women who do not live and die worrying if they are “sexy” or “good-looking” to guys in passing cars. And I applaud that.

I don’t want to be accused of sexism or misogyny with this item. I think we have all found some women who could be described as “homely” surprisingly sexy. Something in their personality or the way they move or a combination of subtle factors makes them transcendent beyond the surface appearance. Perhaps it is a woman we know, someone we work with, a woman we saw on the subway, etc. The accompanying photo was cut out from a men’s magazine by me well over thirty years ago. The caption mentioned that she was “homely but sexy.” She certainly has an “every-woman” quality that could be (except for the fishnets) that girl across the street, or the woman in the accounting department, or perhaps someone you saw walking her dog one evening.

It should be noted that what I am not talking about is the mousy librarian who takes off her glasses and lets down her hair to unveil a sexpot. That’s Hollywood fluff with a very attractive woman disguised to look homely.

And the concept does apply to crossdressers. I wouldn’t want to point anyone out specifically although I’ve known some who fit this category. If you go out socially with other crossdressers or just browse internet photos of crossdressers, you’ve undoubtedly come across some girls who just seem to have some indefinable attractiveness despite their not being glamour girls or fashionistas. And it’s a very personal algorithm that puts all those pieces together and sends the message “sexy” to our heads.

Sometimes it even happens when we look in the mirror.

WHOSE SURGICAL MASK ARE YOU WEARING?

I saw an article in the online magazine The Daily Beast about designer surgical masks that are popping up on celebrities. The article appeared on May 21, 2019. “Good news to anyone about to perform an appendectomy: the surgical mask has become a capital-F fashion accessory,” the Beast report opened.

Kesha in a crystal mask at the Met Gala.

Singer Kesha wore a crystal encrusted mask to a Musicares industry event; Miley Cyrus donned a Louis Vuitton logo’d mask in an Instagram photo when she had the flu, and Kendall Jenner wore a plain white mask at the Coachella festival to protect herself from desert dust. One writer noted that K-Pop bands have been photographed in black masks when they travel which has “spiked interest” in the accessory. “Masks are definitely a trend in music videos, performances, and editorial shoots, but I think it’s trickier on the red carpet, because you’re meant to show your face there,” Laurel DeWitt (who designed Kesha’s crystal mask) said.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is selling a $63 surgical mask with a sparkly Met logo created for its recent gala celebrating (appropriately) “camp.” Believe it or not, there is a whole company devoted to high fashion surgical masks. The Beast report said, “Marc Brown, co-founder of the California-based Vogmask, sells coverings that start at $33. Brown [said] while the mask market is still “niche,” he believes the product can help protect against poor air quality. “We’re going to improve the materials of the product itself so that it feels like a more expensive item that you can invest in.” The company’s masks come in a variety of colors and print designs so you’re not confused with the great unwashed who wear generic masks.

I don’t see this catching on with the crossdressing universe. After fooling with cosmetics to transform into our feminine kissers, why cover it up with a surgical mask, whether bejeweled, colorfully printed or plain? But that might be the answer right there. In a hurry? No time to blend, rouge, and lip gloss? With a surgical mask and wig bangs you could skip making up three quarters of your face. Hmmm. What was that? Did you say it sounds like a good idea? I couldn’t hear you behind your surgical mask.

YOUNG MEN IN DRAG

Reader Emily Frances recently sent me a couple of notes about Womanless Beauty Pageants and a video of a young teen transformed into a “Girl for a Day.” I wrote about Womanless Beauty Pageants (or WBP’s for short) in the Diner four years ago. As serendipity would have it, my Pinterest suggestion feed has been filled with WBP photos for the past few months so the phenomenon of young teen boys (and even younger) dolling up and competing in pageants has been on my mind of late anyway.

A womanless pageant contestant.

Just to recap briefly: the pageants usually involve middle school or high school-age boys dressed as girls in varying degrees of seriousness or campiness. Some of the contestants seem to have a natural flair for the feminine presentation. It’s obvious in many of the photos that the boys’ families condone and encourage their sons’ participation in the pageants. As I mentioned in the earlier Diner piece on the pageants, they seem predominantly held in Bible Belt areas of the South and Midwest. This seems to add another level of puzzlement to figuring out what in hell is going on with these pageants since it flies in the face of the new conservative zeitgeist.

One of the frustrating things about the dozens of photos of WBP contestants is that none of them are captioned, credited, or dated. They appear to be recent (say 2000 onward) but when, where, and who are rarely to be found. I wondered in my 2015 Diner item if any of the boys were triggered enough by their pageant experiences to take up recreational crossdressing afterwards.

Emily also called my attention to a “girl for a day” transformation video. This was one of a series of YouTube videos posted by a Chilean photographer named Fabricio Castro. [Editor’s Note: The link to Senior Castro’s channel  failed to work at posting time. It gets a message saying the channel is unavailable. If it is indeed a technical issue the link may work at some point.] The videos purport to show a number of young teen boys being transformed into quite incredible “girls for a day.”

I watched a few of these and I have a lot of doubts about the authenticity of the end result. The boys are uniformly prepped with hair extensions and manicures and the beginnings of a makeover. Then, after a sizable lapse in the transformation, the “girls” are shown modeling women’s dresses in flawless hair, makeup and natural, unself-conscious feminine movements for the photographer.

I know cosmetics and a great hairdo can do wonders but the “girls” don’t look anything like the boys from which they were supposedly created. I’m pretty sure they are young genetic girls. If you’re intrigued, check it out. If you believe the videos, I’d love to hear. But color me skeptical.

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Tags: crossdressing, featured, impersonation, opinion, Transgender, womanless pageants

Category: Transgender Community News, Transgender Fun & Entertainment