Rest in Peace, Ms. Bettie Page

Sad news this morning on the death of Bettie Page. I am not old enough to remember her early Playboy sessions, but I am old enough to have witnessed her first re-popularization in the late 70’s.

It was a fun time. Punk music sensibilities had outed S&M, leather/latex, Dom/Sub and other hitherto sub-rosa kinks to a degree that had not been the case before, and Bettie’s image and imagery was kind of in the air. I had girlfriends who worked hard at getting her pale look and blunt bangs going for them.

For me though, beyond the curious mix of innocence and experience, of liberated and captive, of threatened and threatening, of strength and frailty and of all the other contradictions she balanced so delicately on her impossibly high heels, I was all about her lingerie. Real support. Ballistic bullet bras. Seamed stockings. Boned cinchers. I felt looking at pictures of Ms. Page that I had been born into the wrong era.

I think in hindsight that the she was a part of a renaissance in sexuality and fashion and even liberalism (small "l", no politics here ... please) that all of us today benefit from. And I understand that not too many dividends from our pleasures went her way.

Her biography is one of trouble, and I am sure that many of her days were confusing. But I do want to say that she will be missed, and I hope that when we see her images, we think nice things, and smile. It can’t hurt, and can only help.

Passing (well … sort of) & other news

Very short post here my lovely and curious friends. As I was doing my daily email, Google Reader, Blog traffic review and general CD/TG snooping I came across 2 things I wanted to share with you.

First, the sad sad news of the lingerie spill on Highway H-1 just outside of Honolulu. A truckload of intimate garments, wind-tossed, tire-spoiled and ditch-begrimed, never to feel the warm touch of flesh. Again, nothing but sad. For full article and video, click here. I imagine myself on the scene dodging traffic in a desperate bid to save the bras.

Next, the happy stuff. In this mornings research I found a neat site. (And I must credit the lovely and talented Lynn Jones whose fabulous "Yet Another T-Girl Blog) can be found here). The Gender Analyzer is a simple online tool that scans websites and offers up an expert opinion on the gender of the author. If you have a blog or want to play with your favorite web sites a little, just press on a new set of nails and click over here.

I did, (minus the nails girls, it’s a busy drab day) and had the analyzer look in on Voyages en Rose. And what do the experts say? (Click on image to enlarge)

I passed. I encourage you all to hum along to your favorite triumphant music and imagine yourself waving to an adoring imaginary audience with your wrist pointed just so and an open hand. That would be Petra just about now.

I glow.

For real, this is interesting to me. I have not edited myself too heavily here. I do a lot of writing professionally and have never considered my gender as an influencer of my style. I have, however, attempted to occupy Petra’s mind while writing here, because it’s a nice way to spend 30 minutes “dressed” without all the effort. Petra needs at least 2 hours to appear and disappear in the real world. Here in the virtual world, she can log in and live it up in snap.

And evidently, she can pass.

And now, I encourage you to imagine my quick pirouette and slightly sassy walk into the sunset on this happy occasion. A last flip of the hair and a wink over my shoulder right your way.

Happy dressing and happy everything else to you.

Getting that Girlish Figure

In an earlier posting I wrote at great length about the trials and tribulations of creating and enjoying the feel and the illusion of a beautiful pair of womanly breasts. To me, that transformation and illusion is truly the holy grail of crossdressing. Petra may never fully realize perfection on the front porch, but the dream lives on and the hope never dies.

What is a little easier though is getting the shape around the hips and butt that evolution did not provide the M2F enthusiast naturally. I have had some great success lately, and want to share my product notes and usage tips. I am not suggesting that I got my shape quite up to Beyonces' breathtaking standards, but ladies, try we must.

By the way, I want your tips too. Please! You can never know too much about building that perfect derriere. Leave a comment here, or drop a line to Petra. Thanks!

Now, before you begin, a few little tricks…

• Stage before you dress. Pack your purse. Have your wig combed out. Pick your accessories. Have your keys by the door. And think about whether the dogs will need to go out. You can dress later and leave relaxed if you have really planned ahead.


• Keep your fluid intake low for a few hours before dressing. If you plan on going out, you will want to stay out. And taking a dainty pee out there, well that is for the very few, the very proud and the very brave. Once you are inside your foundation garments, you are in for the duration.


• File and buff your (natural) nails. You will be handling delicate garments that you want to last forever. Save yourself a run or two.


• Do your makeup before dressing – makeup is time consuming. Dressing is easy
• Shop for neutral shades. Yes, black is hot, but go for close-to-nude shades for the undergear.


• And then, before dressing, seriously, have a pee (sorry about the obsessing here gurls).

Now, I like to keep a little glass of wine handy. A little mood music goes on around this time too. I like Carol King or Eve Cassidy or KT Tunstall or Patty Griffin. Sweet and sometimes hurting voices with heartfelt stories of life from the woman’s perspective. Whatever brings you to the right place is cool (if music is important to you, drop me a line .. who gets you there?)

And lastly, keep pair of standard issue rubber gloves handy. Nothing makes the shapewear fit as cleanly. I am serious. Take a minute to read an informative tutorial while visiting Shapings. Really nice pictures there too.

Now, seeing as we are building here, I am going to employ construction metaphor. Hope thats not too butch for us all. Take a deep breath, you will be pulling on layers here.

The foundation: All important. You need something with real strength. Not only are you adding shape with your foundation, you are suppressing some shape. The waist-high, thigh-slimming 4 pad panty girdle is the key garment. If you have only one thing left in your closet, let it be this. Mine was purchased at Fredericks of Hollywood. Lots of great shapewear. The Fredericks product is superb for a couple of reasons. First, the front panel is nuclear strength. This will flatten you out and really force you to think about your belly. Second, good leg length and silicon trim at the thigh band. Stays in place.

You may also want to look to JC Penny online. Surprisingly, they have the full line of Crown Shapewear on line. Nice prices, great service.

The framing: If a little derriere shape is good, a lot is better, right? Damn right. Get ready to pull up The Squeem Magical Padded Panty. Wow. This complements and fills out the 4 pad girdle. There are no removable pads here. Solid state construction. Like a glove. Online at Sense Lingerie and other fine retailers. If you are here in Atlanta, go visit Anna or Becky at Lingerie Mart. Product is in stock – plus you can try them on there to be sure of the fit.

Petra dies for this layer because it removes the slight lumpiness that the foundation leaves under clingy clothes, and it smooths out and holds in your front just that little bit more.

The Finish Carpentry: At this point you are structurally sound, but its time to work on the aesthetics. Blending the new stuff with the old you is key. Particularly if you will be wearing clingy, body conscious outer layers. Now, for quite some time I have been a Spanx fan. And my love is still there. But my Spanx have tended to roll down and gather at the waist. Not a great look. Additionally, Spanx fabric generates just a little too much warmth for long term comfort.

Petra’s solution --- The Flexees Weightless Power Thigh Slimmer. Weightless, yes, but with the power of 10 women. All the give and flex is around the hips and butt. There is no up and down give at all. Super comfortable, smooth as silk, and exactly what the girl on the go needs nearly on top of it all. Online at Bare Necessities or grab a pair off-line at (you guessed it …) good old JC Penny.

A nice coat of paint: Even with slacks on, I expect you will want to slide gently into your favorite hose or stockings on top of it all. You deserve it. I may not, but I do anyhow. Sometime soon, Petra will weigh in on Pantyhose. Be sure to send me notes on what works for you, because the search for perfection never ends. In the meantime ….

Happy dressing!

A Tale of 2 Visits to Victoria's Secret

Over the years I have bought many nice things in stores. Typically in drab. Sometimes for my wife, sometimes for Petra. My shopping was typically cloaked, (like many of you, dear readers) under the pretence of buying that nice thing for my wife.

Now, I do have some advantages. I can pick up a size 6 skirt or a 34C bra and the cashier or the girl on the shop floor could easily reason that, yes, that is likely the size of his wife. And a quick glance at my left hand would add evidence. There is a gold band on the 3rd finger.

And yes, I can fit my skinny butt into a size 6 skirt and hook a 34C bra around my, well, bust if you must. If I weighed another 60 lbs, things would be a little different. I suppose when you are shopping in a Lane Bryant for a size 24 dress, you are kind of giving yourself away. And that's OK. I am not either editorializing or gloating here. Its just the way it is.....

Nonetheless (even when I am legitimately buying something nice for my wife), there is a part of me that wonders …. “Does this nice stranger think this is for me? Did she clock me? And is she just humoring me? Does she deal with crossdressers everyday?”

Well, I did some nice shopping en femme recently, and it gave me encouragement to change the way I shop in drab. Here goes:

Visit # 1

After a superb make up treatment (Thanks R!), I had a little time to kill before the cocktail hour. I popped into Macys, and it was a little bit of a ghost town. Staff said hello. I stopped in intimates, looked at shoes, thought about a couple of dresses, not seriously shopping, but rehearsing shopping. Nothing really stood out, including it seems, Petra. Just another girl in a store.

I strolled out into the mall and was drawn inevitably into Victoria’s Secret. Now the fun begins. The entirely cute and petite Asian girl was envious of my ability to walk in heels. I swear to goodness, I was giving a Ggirl tiny lessons in letting the hips do the work. And there was a terrific promotion in the shop. Spend a minimum of $10.00, and get a gift card with random value --- likely $10.00 but possibly a thousand. How could a girl say no?

The abundance of mirrors and the O so nicely merchandized collections of pretty things were just music to me. Nothing furtive about my browsing. I know I was clocked within seconds by the staff, (and, if I am a realist, by some of the quicker clientele), but no worries at all. In fact, my new friend who can’t walk in heels said that if I wanted to try anything on, I was most welcomed.

Somebody shoot me while I am happy.

The fitting rooms were a little crowded, and really I had the wrong outfit on ( turtleneck dress, a real wig-popper) so a little try before you buy was out of the question. But do you know, the point was, I was fooling nobody (fully) and it just did not matter. Just a guy in a dress.

Just a guy in a dress on a budget too. I really did not want to splash out too much that night, but had to pick something up. Hosiery of course is something you can never have either enough or too much of. So after all the touch and feel, just picked up a pair of superb semi-boarded control tops with a very pretty lace effect at high thigh. Cashed out, got a little spritz of perfume, a nice catalog, a yet to be redeemed gift card and pretty pink bag to walk back out to the car with.

And this really got me thinking. I cannot get out as much as I like to en femme (too many reasons, more on that later). But I do like to prepare for nights (and days) en femme. I do like as well to keep in touch with Petra, and do things for her. Sometimes it is just a visualization exercise. You see a nice look on a real woman, and say to yourself, yeah Petra ought to have that look. And then, maybe you go shopping for that look. In drab.

Visit # 2

So I was in drab yesterday, and my Victoria’s Secret Secret Value gift card was burning a hole in my pocket. Those control tops I mentioned earlier on – fabulous. Really snug around the hips and butt. Nice glossy finish. Yum. So I dropped in.

“Can I help you find something today?”
“Sure, I am looking for hosiery”
“Is this a gift?”
“No, its for me. I wear a size C here”
“OK, just over here…”

And do you know something, there were no flashing red lights, no PA announcements of the presence of a deviant in the store, no women and children shrieking and running away. Just me and the nice girl talking 'bout tights.

“You don’t need the control tops do you? I mean look how skinny you are…”
“Well, I have different parts I need to ... ummm.... well, contain you know… and the padded panties, well they need to be smoothed out a bit too.”
“Really? Well, yeah, I guess that makes sense … oops, hey, I think we are out of the black in C. I like the almost black. Would that work for you?"
"Sure, that will do"
"Do you need anything else today?”
“No, I really just wanted to find out whether my surprise value card is worth $10.00 or whether I like struck gold and got one of the high value ones…”
“Well, I hope you get lucky – check out is just over here...

Nice for the environment too. She did not bother asking me whether I wanted a gift box.

“Do you have a Victoria’s Secret Angel Card?”
“Um, not yet.”
“You really ought to get it. You'll never ever pay full price”
“OK, well I will figure that one out later….”

And so it went.

And so it will go in the future. When I shop for me, I will shop openly. I suspect that some people will just be too unnerved to do their job well. And that is ok. I pretty much expect that I will get terrific service, and will probably meet some nice people just by being a little more honest about it. Perhaps this will help drive down the stigma factor that many of us still fear to one degree or another. And it might just make life a little more interesting for the nice, nice women working in a small handful of shops.

I will keep you posted on how it goes.

Curtain up!

Yes, I had been out before. Just not so well put together. Just not without the covering excuse of Halloween. Just not so prepared to go out and stay out. Just not so much fearful of being “caught” as ready to be “met”.

Settling on the right venue was key. A dear and helpful friend suggested Paris Decatur. And this was interesting. I had previously confined my en femme nights out to gay bars. There is a long and obvious tradition of drag friendliness at most of these establishments. Lesbian bar though. I really had to think twice. A part of me worried that a genetic male type (even with all the nice feathers) might not be so welcomed. Straight boy playing hot-chick in a room of women who prefer women …. you know, I just wanted to be sure I would not be offending the aesthetic of the place or pissing off the regular clientele.

I called beforehand. “Hell yes, everything goes, no problem, see you later”. As per usual, overthinking gets you nowhere. And really that reaction is pretty consistent with all the reactions … “guy in girls clothes? Yeah, and so what?”

So, off to Paris. Perfect curbside parking spot had just opened up. Managed to execute a superb parallel park even hobbled by the 4” stiletto boots. And the rest of the (visible parts of the) ensemble (I will do a little essay on foundation garments some other happy day):

▪ Fishnets over sheer black hose
▪ Short, tight black cotton/lycra skirt
▪ Back-zip, crotch-snap Danskin turtleneck (second skin, yumm)
▪ Lots of silver accessories
▪ Nice shawl.

“R” had fixed my makeup and hair. I really felt good. A quick smoke for the nerves out front. The benefits of the smoke was cancelled out by the freakish cold though and I entered shaking like a leaf. The joint was pretty full. There was a stool still open at the end of the bar. “Is this seat open? Thanks”. Brain freeze around the whole issue of where the hell do I put my purse? By my feet? On the bar? Gawd how do real girls get any damn thing done? Its all so complex.

Drink, sure, a glass of …. (what works for my look? …) Pinot Grigio thanks.

I am not too outgoing in most social settings. I prefer to observe people. I do not really throw myself out there. Other people are way more interesting. I did though ask the lovely barmaid what was on the program for tonight.

“Drag Kings, starting up well, sometime soon.”

O this is good. Lets see if I can capture it here. Lesbian bar. Karaoke/Lip synch entertainment by woman dolled down as men. And undoubtedly emphasizing the more lamentable stereotypes and laughable characteristics of male behavior. For an audience of women. And at least one genetic male dressed, well, provocatively to say the least. And her/me standing at the end of the bar right next to the performers platform. I may as well as had a little pink spotlight on me. Well this is all on the verge of wierd.

The nice looking and quiet woman beside me was working on a beer out of the bottle. She was much more civil then me, or at least possessed of finer social graces.

“Hi, my name is Stefanie”

“Hi Stefanie, I'm Petra”

I indicated that I would usually be more inclined to drinking a beer out of the bottle just like her, but it just didn’t seem to go with my look. Smile. So what are we both doing here? Well Stefanie had just finished dinner with a friend, and was within site of her apartment and said to herself, what the hell its Friday and I am not going home just yet. Good for Stefanie. And it gets better. She lives within walking distance of Paris, fits right in and and yet had never once been to Paris (Decatur that is). A pair of rookies. I could only shake my head. Never been here? No, I guess I don’t get out much anymore.

Well, I had to admit is was my first trip here too. And no I guess I don’t get out much (at least not like this) anymore either. Stefanie is very attractive. A little younger then me. A complexion that does not need makeup. And a native of Atlanta. I found it funny that I pursued the same lines of conversation en femme with her as I pursue with strangers in other social settings.

Asking someone in Atlanta if they grew up here is the surest way to find out that, no they were born in Racine or Cincinnati or Schenectady or Ocala or Huntsville or any damn where but Atlanta. But no, Stefanie is a native. Of Atlanta. Take that.

The entertainment started. I won’t dwell on it all too long. It was a very young crowd. When I was that age I worked hard at ensuring that anyone over 30 would be deeply offended by my musical tastes. If grey hairs were digging on what I dug, I felt I was digging the wrong stuff. So, full credit to these youngsters. But the tunes were just not my cup of tea. With the possible exception of the cover version of Phil Collins "In the air tonight".

That said, so much of it made me happy. The energy, the dancing, (some of) the F to M transformations and the general wonderful freedom and license that drenched the room. This generation was out there and really holding nothing back. Cool.

The star of the evening, or at least the focus of a lot of the attention was a totally cute barely 20 something who was shipping out to Iraq the next morning. She was holding nothing back. I wished her well and thought about the sacrifices being made by beautiful young people to preserve my freedom to wear a padded panty girdle. Its all kind of asymmetrical. I really do hope she does well in this tour and beyond. Her friends were out in pretty big numbers and really hootin’ / hollerin’ for her.

Other parts of it made me happy too, or at least forced out the performer in me. You see, Drag Kings it seems to me need to do the whole "leering guy" act at attractive girls in come-hither outfits like the outfit I was poured in to. And I’m like standing there like I cannot be missed. The attention was nice though, and not at all gropey. Yes, I was to a certain degree objectified, but not badly. I did a couple of classic hair and scarf flicks to indicate disinterest in the Kings’ advances and it was all good theatre.

In between sets Stefanie and I got a chance to share 40-something observations. Our views were not too far apart. I think Stephanie was a little envious, not jealous, just nicely envious, of the youngsters and their full throttle out-ness. And happy for the youngsters too. I did not however want to totally take her attention all night in so far as Paris was a pretty target rich environment for a nice looking real woman and there was a total hottie who reminded me of Kim Novak (think of Vertigo) right beside her at the bar. I chatted with Melodie for a bit, and stole some fashion tips, but was kind of hoping that she would make nice with Stefanie and maybe exchange numbers.

Now ultimately I don’t think that happened --- there were some other dramas in the air that evening. Situation normal I understand from friends. But I do know this: Melodie and I emptied the bar of the Pinot Grigio over the course of the evening.

Melodie, if you are reading this, I still want your sweater with the furry collar trim. And please drop me a line anytime.

In any event a small handful of nice people said nice things about my look. Everybody that approached me was kind, a little curious, and sweet. I was made to feel very much at home.

And just as I was getting ready to call it a night, my new friend Stephanie asked if I wanted maybe to grab a coffee the next day. It was the sweetest thing. I was totally flattered and entirely surprised. And happy to say yes and exchange numbers.