transretrogurl

So, my previous post was a little, well, justifiably unhappy. It’s Winter, society is outwardly embracing gender fluidity whilst quietly hostility is prevalent everywhere against the trans community. Putin is still chucking missiles and troops at Ukraine and Ukraine is still fighting back. Costs of everything are up, everyone is striking, the world seems, well, broken.

But, at the end of the day as I have said on many occasions, you just get the one ride around on this crazy ball of madness, so I find myself taking a *lot* of deep breaths and trying to focus on more joyful things.

Pictured – more joyful things. A banana.

Luckily I managed to get to a session at Cindy’s a couple of weeks back; one of the other reasons I haven’t posted since is that it was my, sigh, birthday (and yeah, I know it’s better to have them than not but still, after 54 of the damn things I’m way nearer to whatever passes for an afterlife as I am to the start of this trek) and like all not-so-secretive drama-queens I retreated to a ‘woe is me, pass the eighth beer’ style of life for a bit. It was good beer. And wine. But in defiance of everything that is going on, age included, it’s time to try and cheer up. And the session helped a lot. So, a quick ‘chat’ blog post and some serious squee-ing on frocks and wigs should help lift the damp quilt of Winter.

Going completely into character….

After the last session when Cindy finally got a chance to try some retro wigs she had bought specifically with me in mind, I decided to go look at the Etsy shop where she found them. It’s a gloriously fantastic place where I could literally, and very easily, buy the whole stock – go have a peek at ‘Wigs in the City’ on Etsy. The guy who runs it is delightful, friendly and very good at what he does. After umming and ahhing about literally every wig on offer I treated myself to a ‘Lucille Ball’ style updo; I don’t normally do updos or short hair as, well, I’m a tall girl and I’ve always thought a tight, 1950’s, flame-red updo would make me look somewhat like a Swan match (for all people who don’t come from 1970’s England Swan were (are?) a brand that had red-topped matches).

Pictured – it helps if you dieted to a stupid degree to get the ‘match-like’ figure

Prior to the session I gently got the wig out of its delivery box, terrified I’d screw up the beautiful styling, and popped it on my head just to see how much it didn’t suit me.

Oh my. It was gorgeous. I slipped on my favourite Lucille Ball frock, ignored the lack of makeup and placed the wig on my head. The result was delightfully stunning; a serious looking 1950’s housewife stared back at me from the bathroom mirror.

Looking at myself in the mirror, sans makeup and seeing ‘him’, it became very apparent that this look could be *the* one. What I mean by that is that I’ve always convinced myself that I’ll find one look where I’d look in the mirror and ‘bang’, my brittle pretend personality would fall away, blown apart by the appearance of what I think is the perfect 100% character look.

Pictured – OK, spoiler alert, the wig was GORGEOUS and I loved the 1950’s housewife ‘me’ a little too much.

So, fast forward a couple of weeks, and I headed into London. As expected fate wanted it to be, well, challenging, and decided to drop another ‘Beast from the East’ storm on the UK while I was there. Basically I drove down in glorious sunshine and by the time I parked up at Cindy’s and headed off to the hotel to check in, stay the night, get up, shave, walk back, it was snowing. Hard.

Another spoiler alert – I got home Ok the next day after the sesh but it did involve four hours of driving in white-out conditions. For those who haven’t driven in a blizzard at night it’s a delightful combination of traction-control jumping in every two or three minutes and making you jump while you stare out into a white sheet caused by the headlights bouncing off of snowflakes. Or to put it another way, it makes you think a lot about life, or more importantly how easy it could end under the back of a lorry.

Pictured – worth it. Said it before, will say it again – I can play the 1950’s dutiful housewife *way* too easily. I still think I’m possessed by the spirit of a long dead suburban American ‘wifey’

Anyway….

The session was brilliant. We started with a little fun test; full makeup, a little robe opened gently to reveal the outcome of a number of months on hormones, then I did a revisit of my favourite pregnant look (I love the maternity dress from New Look, and combined with a certain hairdo I look and feel like a proper mum-to-be).

Pictured – *this* look. From the same session. Another look I could easily inhabit if I needed to.

And then the wig. It took a little engineering; because of the style and shortness, and the fact male-me has long hair and refuses to cut it (it was the 80’s, I kinda stuck with a good old fashioned metal-mullet and never changed), there was a lot of taping, tucking hair, glueing lace down, etc etc. But when it was on I almost had that full character moment.

It just looked like all of my 1950’s housewife fantasies realised at once. I had a lovely new 1950’s day dress from Collectif Clothing, and combined that with a petticoat, sensible heels, a squirt or five of Chanel No.5. And I found myself quite breathless.

Pictured – anyone else immediately hear the dulcet tones of her saying ‘Dinner’s ready, darling?’. Just me? Oh….

It’s hard to describe to anyone who doesn’t have the same interests, fetishes, long list of mental quirks, just what the sensation is like. Imagine that you have a warm fire deep inside you, that the tips of your fingers and toes glow, that everything inside feels *right*. It was that and more. Swishing about in the dress and petticoat and looking in the mirror I felt complete.

I came close to that moment, where the facade of real life would drop away and I’d be the woman in the mirror internally for ever. And that wouldn’t be a bad thing, although a tough one to explain to the world in general.

Pictured – yeah, exactly the kind of outfit I’d like to show up to a meeting in. In the early 1970’s, maybe….

We did a tonne of pictures and some delightful videos of the look (if you follow me on Instagram there’s a wonderful Reel with proper 1950’s music that I just keep going back and watching). We also did two more looks with the wig, partly because I couldn’t face taking off and partly because I couldn’t take it off (I have been pulling glue out of my hair and scalp ever since and not regretting it at all).

Eventually it came off. We did a couple more brilliant looks and then I hit the road. But for that couple of hours when I had my own 1950’s flame-red ‘Lucille Ball’ hair-do it was indescribably fun.

And that wig? Ooooo, it’s a good-un. Check it out at https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/973269927/made-to-order-1950s-updo-wig-lacefront?click_key=9359c27edfba51f7307b820e673b4a507c2bbf53%3A973269927&click_sum=d050e47e&ref=shop_home_active_31&frs=1&sca=1&sts=1

Stay beautiful and stay as happy as you can; it’s good to take pleasure from the things you enjoy, do it while you can.

Pictured – oh yeah, those photos……