Our previous article on finding your correct size for women’s clothing resulted in a surprisingly large amount of feedback. Much of the comments were to do with positive and negative experiences of buying garments at various retailers until the individual had worked out the size charts. Many of the negatives were to do with the confusion caused by the variance of same sizes between different manufacturers with also a fair helping of complaints about poor customer service.

The most common example of poor customer service was mainly due to staff being ill-prepared in helping males purchase women’s clothing. This make the transaction difficult. In the extreme it seems some staff can be quite rude but many are just ill-informed or simply not trained well enough in the simple basics.

One or two readers also highlighted a theme that comes up from time to time for crossdressers with regards to dressing in ladies clothes made to fit the male form versus dressing in ladies clothes made for the genetic female shape. For some the excitement of wearing ‘real’ ladies clothes is a necessary part of dressing up, whilst for many the most important thing is to look and feel the most feminine by whatever means when dressing. Our friend Rachel wrote at length her recommendations and her thought process behind her approach to dressing and we have decided to publish her thoughts on the subject.

Do you want to wear a dress?

“As to your newsletter piece, it is a great step on the way to being information that most ‘girls’ can use. Of course, being me, I would suggest that it somehow has the cart and the horse reversed (although you may be doing that for commercial, politically correct and sensitivity issues). So here goes.

The issue starts out with ‘do you want to wear a dress?’ > Simple enough.

How do you want to wear a dress?

Then, however, what is key is do you want to wear a dress with your male man’s body and proportions or do you want to adjust your proportions (with the help of all the goodies that Glamour Boutique has) so that you can properly wear a truly feminine dress?

This is basically the underlying question of ‘do you want to be just a man in a dress’ and try to find size charts that would work least badly for your male body…OR…do you want to look like a woman and be more passable and feel the experience of wearing real GG clothes and outfits?

So, the process should go in a very different sequence and one which you should recommend…is to go to the size charts first. And learn what a woman’s body look’s like. It is amazing how many of the CD/TG/or whatever girls are about women’s measurements.

Studying a brand’s size chart

First, notice that unless you’re very overweight…and need to go to a larger lady’s online site or store you should study the size chart of the store you want to buy from.

You should then calculate what your potential female measurements might be in this stage of your development. For example, a quick look at a dozen brands and department stores will tell you that, generally, the bust measurement runs about 8 inches greater than the waist measurement, and that the hip measurement runs about 10 inches greater than the waist measurement…(and about 2 inches greater than the bust). This is what the typical woman looks like and this is how the various sizes are designed (at least for the usual male height range).

So for example, my ideal size right now…that I can fit into without a corset (but with a cincher) is 41 -32/3- 43/4. I have to work around the 41 as the first index because I cannot get my shoulders any smaller…right now. So then the question becomes what do I need to do…in terms of the various items which you make available…breast forms…probably a C…but not necessarily a D…(just makes finding clothes more difficult in terms of bust size)…a cincher or shaper or corset…to get you down to 33 or lower (of course, in my example, a corset could probably get me to 31/2 soon enough), and with hip and butt forms and padding to boost my smaller male hips UP to the 43/4 to be compatible with my 41 shoulder determined “bust” size.

Working out what you want

That is the first step. To decide whether you want your body to look like a woman’s or just whether you see yourself as “a man in a dress”. And then to decide upon just how ideal or ‘hot” you can make your current measurements appear….by judicious shopping and consults with Glamour Boutique, of course. Once that’s done…then most of the finer fashion women’s outfits will fit you….and, if you look for them on clearance as I do…because you WILL be a larger sized woman’s body….then you can get them cheap… and then spend the surplus money on tailoring or customizing.

The moral of the story…to some extent has to do with whether the ‘person” sees themself as more TG or more CD…or want’s to give the illusion and aura of a woman when dressed or of being just a man ‘in a dress’ at that time……This will go automatically, I predict, with their body language, whether they wish to walk and talk like women or guy’s and really whether they are CD/TG lesbians or looking for men socially.”

Our thanks to Rachel for her thoughts on the process which we have shared with some of the regulars in-store for their ideas and comments. We’ll keep you posted on further feedback on the subject and on feedback as a result of Rachel’s advice.