Dressing the Part, Chapter One

I try never to wear my own clothes, I pretend I'm someone else.
- David Byrne

In those earliest days, long before gender transitioning involved matters of medicine, anatomy and biology, it mostly found me experimenting with clothes.  Dressing up, in other words. Finding apparel to look and hopefully feel, as Mr. Byrne would have it, like "someone else" ... even before I realized, ironically, that the someone else was actually me.



As most of you know, I worked as an actor for many years, an occupation that invariably involves lots of elaborate Dressing Up. Tattered robes for an aged pre-Christian King. Thick wool suits for a grocer's apprentice, or elegant evening wear for an inbred British aristocrat.  In the theatre, one's costume becomes an aid to the artistic imagination, transporting a performer to some other place and time, up or down rungs of the social ladder, and into dusty dark corners of the psyche.

Indeed, one role even required that I wear, for my big final scene, absolutely nothing at all.  While stabbing out the eyes of six stable horses, no less.  While the blood and horse sweat were left to the audience's imagination, all else was clearly on display. This proved the most challenging stage costume yet: my birthday suit.

That is, until about a year later, when I was selected from all other male students at the Drama Studio of London to portray ... a woman.  A 14th century French queen no less, married off at the ripe old age of 12 to a British king who, she sadly discovered, was also a queen.  A great role?  Yes, but for someone who saw himself as another Lawrence Olivier, not Vivien Leigh, this casting brought great disappointment. Eventually I reasoned that big challenges like this were necessary to become a good actor. Even the teenage Sir Larry himself played a fetching, feisty Katharina (but oddly enough, never Petruchio!)

So I climbed on board, and with great dedication dutifully researched the history of pre-Renaissance Britain.  In rehearsals I experimented with a French-accented female voice, and explored Isabella's walk, gestures, and the entire physical reality of the role with a lot more enthusiasm than I'd anticipated.

Though hardly a qualified costumer, I even chose my own outfit. After very little deliberation (yeah, still thinking like a guy) I made my selection: a floor-length, pea-soup colored garment that I'd now consider a polyester reject from "Once Upon a Mattress".  But at the time it bespoke grace, and a feminine dignity. Also, it had the valuable quality of being quite easy to hike up, for a quick leak offstage.

In this get-up I strode conspicuously about the school's common areas, every day, ostensibly learning my character's walk and mannerisms, but mostly demonstrating to one and all that I Was Cool With It; that for the sake of Art, my masculine vanity could survive this serious hit quite well, thank you. In performance, the pea-soup gown did indeed transport me, inspiring a physical sense of Isabella, her lithe sexuality, feminine power, and regal demeanor.  For the audience, it did what I needed most, clearly indicating I was now no longer Me, but some fictional She.

The result?  Well, months later, when instructors sat me down to discuss and evaluate the year's work, that role was singled out as my most committed, strongest, and overall finest effort. No kidding.

So decades later, when finally realizing that this Me was indeed a She, the whole dressing up thing should have been a snap, right?

Well ... yes and no.

I definitely had the stage actor's "give it a go" attitude towards surrendering personal dignity to modify my appearance "for the character".  Those first retail clothing safaris were not unlike that journey into theatrical storage for Queen Isabella's costume, evaluating each dress/sweater/skirt in terms of the female "character" it would bring to life. I became something of a modern Pygmalion, using clothing and my body to fabricate a living woman from my imagination.

To be sure, such an elevated approach did put me somewhat ahead of other cross-dressing males. Which is not saying much, as this group is known to gravitate heavily towards the gear of their favorite (check all that apply) movie starlet, pin-up girl, teacher, nurse, female wrestler, comic book heroine, or cheerleader.  So in such a context, I was pretty darned confident if not downright conceited about my first efforts to present as female.  I was soon venturing out boldly in public, fully attired "en femme" as we say, and quite proud of my appearance.  I turned heads, getting lots of positive attention from my cross-dressing peers ... and also from men.

But truthfully, I was still a long way from wearing anything Delia would even be caught dead in now, One glance at those first photos tells it all:  for all my theatrical experience and talents, I still had much to learn about dressing like a woman, out in the real world. At my best, I was a lively sketch of womanhood, one best viewed at some distance in dim light after a few drinks. At my worst, well, let's just say everyone involved has been sworn to silence.

(No, you won't see photos from this period. Maybe one day, in the far distant future, when I'm either so evolved or rich/famous that my ego can take it. Maybe.)

Only now do I understand what it was holding me back.  An actor's intuition is guided by a script, searching for a character already created by a skilled author.  I was directed by something else entirely, seeking my own identity, a process not leading away but indeed right back towards myself.  Until I could truly accept what I saw, that woman in my imagination would not truly materialize. No, not even if I could dance for hours in 4 inch heels (I could) or wear dresses short enough to make a stripper blush (which I did).

Moreover, I was largely clueless of my deficiencies.  In retrospect this was a blessing. My ignorance kept me blissfully enthusiastic and moving ever forward. Wearing more female clothes, doing more shopping, trying different styles, continually making and learning from a whole series of fashion "faux pax". In other words, still staying in the game.

So while there were many "false-steps", as the term suggests, these somehow took me down the right road anyways.  A journey which has yielded some pretty dubious clothing purchases. And darned funny stories.

Coming soon ... 

Dressing the Part, Chapter Two:  
No, Lycra is Not your Friend
... and Other Things I Didn't Know about Women's Clothing and Had to Learn the Hard Way