Showing posts with label bullet bra. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bullet bra. Show all posts

Nov 11, 2009

Bullet Bra Blogging

Google Reader alerts me to blog updates from a rich variety of sites of different types. Me, I follow quite a few fashion and foundation garment commentators. As a part time cross dresser, I have much to learn, and a lot of catching up to do knowledge-wise. Yeah, and the pictures are pretty, I must confess. I have followed Tomima (pron. toe-MY-mah) Edmark, the proprietress of HerRoom.com for some time now. Tomima’s own blog (linked here) is typically pretty rich in tips and tricks to finding the right underwear and getting the most out of them. Really informative stuff.

Her post
today had a little reference to cross dressing that moved me to write a little note to her. I am all about recycling and so I thought I would kill two birds with one stone here by sharing the conversational volleys so far. I hope the discussion continues. Take a minute to read the post if you can. And then do come back here love, would you? Here is a short summary to save you the trip:

1. Cone shape bras are showing up on runways. 2. This silhouette always appears in troubled economic times. 3. Women will not welcome this – too, too unpractical. 4., and lastly, I will quote directly from Tomima (italics, mine):

...That said, we do get phone calls every once in a while asking which bras we carry at HerRoom that give a pointed silhouette. And, I will tell you that most calls asking this are from men who like to wear ladies lingerie. But, if you happen to like this silhouette, the Fantasie Belle 6010 and Goddess Longline 689 are two good choices. ...


Interesting reference I thought. My comment here:

A terrific and welcomed post. Yes I have been seeing some of the same silhouettes and breathless commentary about bullet bras from the commentariat, and have a couple of thoughts on the matter.

The designers who start the trends tumbling downhill surely into our closets are motivated in part by doing something different than last year. Change being at the heart of creativity. Change is clearly at the heart of commerce too I suppose. From short to long and back, from natural to de-natured and back, from round and soft to hard and angular and back we go and hope we can find a good parking spot at the mall.

Bullet bras and the resulting Russell-esque shapes will be seen in greater numbers for a while yes, but I suspect always near cameras and stages, catwalks and nightclubs. Boudoirs too I suppose for women and men both who like a little playful time and perhaps have a sense of nostalgia for an era they missed barely or by decades. God bless the girlfriends and wives who are willing to humour their spouses for a few uncomfortable hours.

I suspect that most of the men that inquire of your personnel about conical brassieres are possessed a little by that nostalgia, and perhaps a desire to feature the campier and less flattering aspects of “drag”, rather than the sincerely admiring and envious “femulations” undertaken by the vast majority of periodic cross dressers.

Speaking as one of the sincere latter, the search for comfort, support and prettiness remains paramount. I look for bras that contain my breast forms well, and disappear beneath my dresses leaving only the most setting appropriate and flattering figure lines up front. The experience of cross dressing is for many, if not most, the experience of blending in and being. Not standing out and being seen.

Thanks, sincere thanks, for your many blog posts. They have helped me be a smarter consumer of foundation garments of all types. Any time you have any thoughts or advice for the studious cross dresser or committed transgender, I would love to see them here. I can assure you that a surprising number of your current readers will be happy to see themselves respectfully addressed.

Fond regards

Again, a fine and educational blog, highly recommended. If I see anything catering to the CD/TG audience there, I will let you know here.

But tell me friends .. bullet bras? Yes or no. Leave a comment,

Happy dressing.

Dec 12, 2008

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.
 
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