Introduction

[sasha_feather]

Hello! I'm Sasha, cis female, I work in an office in an academic/health-care research area. To my own great surprise, I've lately gotten quite interested in fashion and style. This is because I got a whole lot more comfortable with myself when I came out as queer last year. I've played with dressing more traditionally-feminine and more traditionally-masculine or neutral; the latter seems much more visibly queer, but I like wearing both kinds of clothes, sometimes at the same time, and experimenting with my presentation. I've never worn makeup but that is not unusual for women in my region/culture. I have lately added several dresses to my wardrobe, and a tie. To work, I usually wear trousers, a dress shirt, a jacket/blazer, my Danskos, and my cap (which I wear everywhere due to light sensitivity). Sometimes I wear skirts to work with knee socks or tights. I've become extremely fond of pinstripes, tweed, and things that are red leather. One thing that was a revelation for me was that if I admire a look on men, I can wear it too! (This seems obvious now but it never consciously occurred to me before I came out.)

For three things that are very "me", I tried to think of things that I wear a lot, since my style is very much in flux these days.

*My red leather Danskos. photo at Flickr

*My cap. I think it's called a driver cap? It's charcoal colored. I've been told it looks very queer, and that pleases me. photo of me wearing my cap.

*My pendants. I wear a necklace nearly every day, and it's usually the only jewelry I wear, although lately I've been wearing some rings and a bead bracelet too. I like "semi-precious" stones the best, fairly large ones that I can fiddle with. In fact, the fiddling-with feature is the best aspect of jewelry for me, and it helps me with anxiety. A photo of a few of my pendants (the blue ones)

Comments

[jeshyr]

One thing that was a revelation for me was that if I admire a look on men, I can wear it too! (This seems obvious now but it never consciously occurred to me before I came out.)

Wow. I had never consciously thought of that before you said it!

Also I adore your cap and red shoes, I have no idea of the proper name for the cap but my grandfather used to wear one like it. I may have to go cap-shopping now! And you take wonderful photos BTW, I looked at some of the rest of your photostream while I was at it :)

Cheers,
r

[sasha_feather]

Gender norms are so insidious, aren't they?! Also it can be hard to find men's-style clothes that fit womens' frames, as has been discussed in this comm, but I have found a lot of gender-neutral-style clothes that do fit right to get this kind of look, in the womens' sections of stores.

There is a really good hat store in my town, and I'm super happy with this hat. I get a lot of compliments on it. I had to get over a bit of self-consciousness at first since it's weird wearing a hat all the time, but now I love it!!

Thanks so much for your compliment! I love taking photos.