no boys allowed in the room!!!!

Btw I technically had hair fairly similar to that cut and it N-E-V-E-R looked like that, also I got hair wax all over my collar all the time, also as I may have mentioned before I looked like Zoe Ball.

Well, there is also...

http://www.anothermag.com/filestorage/20/7/27667.jpghttp://i.imgur.com/KBd3c.png

And there was me all feeling pleased with myself coz I thought I had finally found a style icon that was at least the correct sex, but that's not going to work, is it?

I had, basically, THIS hair, when I was 15, and then again when I was in my late 20s

http://media.avclub.com/images/articles/article/42433/tilda-swinton_M_jpg_627x325_crop_upscale_q85.jpg

But I was a lot thinner and, more crucially, lived in a lot less humid environment. Hair like that works in a dry, mountainous region, it doesn't work in the malarial swamps of South London.

I just absolutely love, love, love her clothes and her style and everything - she does androgyny in the way that I would love to be able to pull off. But my body would always betray me. Just like it always does when all the people I want to dress like are dudes. Why oh why isn't there a fat-girl version of the Weimar Lesbian look I used to rock? It's not fair.

ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha oh god

http://www.morphthing.com/showimage/2/0/0/10436613/Thom-Yorke--Tilda-Swinton.jpeg

OMG that website (again)!
http://www.morphthing.com/showimage/2/0/0/37010075/Michael-Jackson--Tilda-Swinton.jpeg

kinda looks like Sigourney Weaver

No, that one is just RONG.

I love MorphThing far too much for my own good. It's so hilarious.

I was looking for fashion icons for you all morning, WCC, but they kept being feminized men instead of androgynized women, and they were all couture-y, ie thin as reeds and not a one over 30. I see that it's a bit hard to find really on-point role models when you actually do NOT want to "feminized menswear" but actual menswear.

I think p much everyone, man and woman alike, looks good w/chin- or mouth-length hair.

Well, part of the problem is I am just so physically BIG (I am tall, and have very wide shoulders as well as being heavy) and so 90% of womens clothes just do not *fit* me. And the few that do, they tend towards tent-y. I would be happy to do sort of feminised menswear if I could get it in my size, but I expect it would probably have to be hand tailored. I suppose I might as well get some tailored as my weight seems to have stabilised. A friend of mine got some tweeds hand tailored in Hong Kong and they are dazzling.

It seems with women who are big and buxom, the thing they seem to do is wear very feminine clothes, with cinched waists and deep bosoms but good god the last thing I want to do is draw attention to my breasts. And I can't abide dresses and feminine clothes, I just feel like a horse wearing drag.

Welllllll you could buy men's shirts with the right shoulder width and have the bodies tailored, that would be an affordable alternative to custom shirts. And...suiting vests are good for waist defining?

I saw a picture of a menswear "skirt" made out of like fisherman's sweater with leather-bound edges and buckles on it and it fairly screamed You.

I think curvy women look good in vests, ties, and dress shirts. The vest would work with your waist, although a well-fitted dress shirt and pants would probably require some tailoring.

xp!

I think I would go pared-down rock and roll for everyday, though. Buy nice Tshirts, not underwear ones but something nicer & heavier, in 2 or 3 neutrals (grey, black?) and put them with pinstriped vests, women's jeans because they have to fit, and your engineer boots. That plus a really intersting haircut and maybe professional hair color would be a whole outfit? Some beat-up bracelets or a cuff or a leather thong or something? Or some hand-hammered art earrings that are the showpiece of the whole thing, or you know, whatever you feel like.

There. You're dressed!

I am forever on the lookout for good waistcoats. You have just reminded me that I need to get one of them dry cleaned. I want a tweed one and found a place in Scotland that does them made to order from whatever burr of tweed you choose, wantwantwant. In fact, should just order one now I have been paid.

Mens shirts are always trouble because if they fit me in the shoulder, then they have *gaping* problems at the bust (and often again at the hips, too.) So I tend not to wear button down shirts.

I need to learn more about getting clothes altered. I'm just so hopeless at all those girl things.

My faves androgynous style was/is '90s Beck, which always drove my mom nuts, me wanting to dress like that. In Seventeen the last page was 'dress like X celebrity' and they had one of Dress Like Beck circa '96, which was a good investment for me to show to my mom, SEE GIRLS CAN DO THIS TOO.

http://desmond.imageshack.us/Himg8/scaled.php?server=8&filename=ohthat.jpg&res=landing

Five years ago maybe? It's too hot to dress like that here.
emil.y is very good at rocking the tie and blazer look

Buy nice Tshirts, not underwear ones but something nicer & heavier, in 2 or 3 neutrals (grey, black?) and put them with pinstriped vests, women's jeans because they have to fit, and your engineer boots. That plus a really intersting haircut and maybe professional hair color would be a whole outfit?

Thanks. You have just turned me into Thom Yorke on the King of Limbs tour. :-P

I want to fuck him, not be him!

(actually I'm not so sure about that, but let's just pretend.)

Abbs you are too damned adorable for this thread. And dressed like Beck is too, too cute.

Getting clothes altered isn't a girl thing!!! Men's suits and dress clothes are INVARIABLY custom-fitted, there's no way for them to be any good otherwise. And you don't need to know HOW to do it, that's the tailor's job. Tell you what, stop into a tailor and ask: if I bought some shirts and brought them to you, what would be the most important measurement that would need to fit to start with? And do what they say.

What a fashion thread. I'm a creep, and you're a loser. Hurrah!

x-post to Beckotts

However you are going to need bras that fit or nothing else will fit over them. So reach a detente with your bust for long enough do that.

Really love the dress shirt and pants look, I had to buy all these business casual clothes for work and I think career separates trousers look a lot better on me than jeans. If I could just wear that and stompy boots and a sweater every day I'd be happy.

My bras are all dying and poking me uncomfortably in awkward places. I don't want to have to go bra shopping again, I just did it 2 years ago. Bra shopping is a special kind of hell.

How on earth do I find a tailor anyway? Actually I think there might be one across the road from the office.

Bras shopping is ~~~the worst~~~

Bra shopping and first dates are the most hideous things in the history of the world. I have to do one this weekend, don't make me do the other!

These suggestions have been v v useful, though. I'm going to go and dye my hair now because 2 inch roots are never attractive.

Hey, you know what makes bra shopping a lot easier? Being willing to spend more money to go to a place where you just stand there and they fit you. Yes, you will have to let some bossy old lady (aren't they always bossy old ladies, where DO they find them) see you in your bra, but she does it for a living and you look just like everyone else she helps so no biggie. And she throws three bras at you and you're done for a year, and a year later you can just order the same thing again if they still fit.

I wouldn't even know where to go for that. It's not like I don't have money. I just don't ever buy bras from anywhere that isn't Marks & Sparks.

Mens shirts are always trouble because if they fit me in the shoulder, then they have *gaping* problems at the bust
Ok, here's a solution to the gaping bust problem: take your button-down shirt to the tailor and have them just sew it up. It is now a pull-over with decorative buttons.

There's no way it will go over my shoulders/back if it is sewn up! I guess I just need to buy bigger shirts. I have a couple of women's shirts that are like, UK size 22 or something, and though they flap in awkward places, they don't have gaping problems.

YOU DON'T HAVE TO KNOW WHERE TO GO, THAT'S WHAT GOOGLE IS FOR.

DON'T MAKE ME YELL AT YOU!

Honestly I like the idea of menswear but button-up shirts never fit me either so I've basically completely given up on them. On the rare occasion, I solve the gaping problem with double-sided dress tape--it's SUPER sticky and you can get a pack of like 50 pieces for $10 or something.

I used to be able to get away with those little gold safety pins. But even they pucker.

Don't sew it up all the way, leave room for your head.

Better yet have them sew it closed ON you and just wear it into the shower. Be sure to get one of those permanent-press/no-iron kinds, though!

I would love to do that. I would have made an excellent Elizabethan. But these days, people tend to object to the smell if you are sewn into your clothes.

I do, however, need to dig out my awesome tie collection. Because I do have a great one, and I've no idea where they've all got to. I inherited all my father's 60s Liberty print skinny ties. They are ~amazing~.

GIRRRRL go the tailor across the street from work and ask what you should look for in a shirt that you're going to have altered and then go out and buy at least two in solid colors (because the alternations might make stripes crooked) and have them taken in with waist and bust darts and then wear them with your ties and THEN talk to me.

I love ladies in ties. I would like to be a lady who wears ties but I don't feel quite right in them. Maybe I should try wearing a tie with a dress...

My Secret to Bra Shopping: go to a fancy department store. Get measured. Try on lots of bras. Figure out the size/brand that you like the best. Buy that kind of bra (one in beige/brown and one in black) for the rest of your life. Then it only hurts the first time you shop. Or until they stop making the bra you like and you have to go back for another try.

Ties with dresses are so mod! Love them. I love shirt-dresses, too, but again--never fit.

i used to do that - i think i still have a few of the ties i modified, including the pink vinyl "klaus barbie" tie

I have two shirt dresses that fit pretty well. I had a lot of luck with eShakti.com for a few years. Their standard 22 is pretty much right on for my measurements.

WCC, maybe try bravissimo for getting measured for bras--they're only in UK and have a great rep for fitting busty people well.

there's one online busty-people clothing vendor that uses hook-and-eyes instead of buttons in the bust area, so there's no gaping. that seems like a possible mod for existing shirts?

I think Curvy Kate is also UK and are all about pretty bras for women who actually have women boobs.

OK no first hand experience but I think this is important:

"CLASSIC WHITE SHIRTS FOR THE LARGE BUSTED WOMAN
WHO CARES ABOUT FIT AND QUALITY"

http://campbellandkate.com/

Campbell & Kate is a clothing company in New York City with a specialty line of shirts for the professional woman who wears a bra cup size D-H and a dress size 4-14.

^^^^^yeah, fucken LOL. Only skinny women with big tits may apply. No fatties allowed. Dear Campbell and Kate: GO FUCK YOURSELVES.

Anyway, I am now officially middle aged. Because I forced myself to walk up and down the High Street and in the end the only shop that had anything I liked was Marks & Sparks. 10 years ago, I'd be all "ugh, old ladies" but now I'm just "hmmm, this is really classy and classic." SHOOT ME NOW. I got some lovely loose oversized shirts with military sort of styling. And waistcoats. I got a blue paisley waistcoat - my inner 19 year old Church fan is squeeing happily.

I am now starting to grade which UK high street shops don't bat an eyelid at an unaccompanied woman entering the mens department to shop. Marks & Sparks and House of Fraser get a pass, but Debenhem's is a big fail for the gentleman who was shocked - SHOCKED - that I was shopping for myself.

Which is kind of a shame because the mens clothes there were definitely the best. If I were a man, I would be such a clotheshorse! Seriously, I would just buy and wear all the clothes in the world. But shopping for womens clothes is just endless "ugh, ugh, yuck, ugh, no, why can't this cover mine arms, can you make it less *frilly* please?" It doesn't seem fair.

BTW M&S do bra fittings (at least, the Oxford one does - they take appointments but I didn't realise that and just turned up and they fitted me in within half an hour). Think House of Fraser do too; there isn't one here but I got measured at the one in Cheltenham a few years ago.

One of the specialist places mentioned upthread is almost certainly better at the less catered-for ends of the size spectrum, but if you're going to M&S/HoF anyway...

There are many OTM things on this thread re clothes and androgynous chic, sigh. At least you got some years of being the right shape to pull off the "Weimar Lesbian look" (heh); even when I was half my current age and clothes size I had a big square face and hamster cheeks which made me not really capable of the mid-90s Frischmann/Sadier look I was sort of aiming for, or at least daydreaming of

Ha! I never had the cheekbones to pull of a Frischmann/Sadier look. When I was thin, I had a big long horse face. But the only time in my life I was thin enough to pull off that look, I lived off vodka and nutrigrain bars and walked everywhere because I was too poor to take the bus. It wasn't a healthy thing to do.

I will probably look into getting a bra fitting at M&S or HoF since I went to the ones in Croydon which are 5 minutes from where I work anyway, it would be easy to go back. I was just not in the mood for any more clothes shopping at that point.

Sounds like your shopping went not-so-bad, yay! No reason to push it at this point if you are tired of it.

(I have been trying to get myself to go score some new work clothes while the big US department stores are having their major sales, but keep stalling and stalling and stalling because I just don't find it that fun.)