Developing a mental image

Once the choice had been made and settled upon that I was to go out en femme for the Halloween holiday, it was now necessary to decide just how I was to 'look'. In the past, my few interludes into dressing up had been less than satisfactory appearance wise. I wanted to not only look nice this time, but be fully convincing.

The materials needed to be reasonably priced and readily available. Of course there was eventually to be the matter of sizing and such as well. However, my first concern was to decide just 'how' I wanted to look.

A few of the catalogs that had been coming for the previous resident of my domicile gave some insight into styles as well as the kind(s) of styles that I preferred. To seek to increase the 'passability', I also resigned myself to not go for a vamp look or for too much elegance. An 'everyday' yet reasonably feminine look was in order.

Of course the World Wide Web was a great help as well. Places such as the CoverGirl page, the JC Penney page and pages such as the Transgender Resource Guide were very helpful.

The initial purchase near the middle of this year was from one of the Frederick's 'sale' catalogs that had arrived in late May or early June. Making good use of the 'bargains' in the grab bag section found in the middle of the sale catalogs, I was soon on my way to having my first items to "play" with.
That first order was for two each of bra's, blouses/tops and skirts, as well as a waste cincher (like an idiot, I got the 'thong' back - oochers) and for kicks, a grab bag dress. Everything that arrived was lovely with the exception of the dress:

two denim - straight skirts

one cut just above the knees with a back button to help it fit the waste with real sexy lines

the other much shorter with a black, mock leather, lace up front (this one shows off the touche' real nice

two bras

one back clasp in black lace with lace accents above and below

one pink satiny material with front clasp and slight padding

two blouses

one white with lacy cutaway embroidering and a low neck line
(kinda hard to hide the 'pads' on this one)

one black with a turtleneck type neckline - sleeves and neckline ornemented in a wavy type bunching of the fabric. The fabric is also striped in its weave

An abhorid two peice green dress

what an icky green this thing was - I tried to bleach it out to see if it might be possible to re-dye it to a better color, but it ended up an even funkier yellow and it appeared the lacy accents would not really take to coloring anyway

Fearing that the bra's might not have enough support (both kinda made with a low - revealing - fabric line) I also ventured forth to Meijer's to pick up some sale items I noted in the weekly flyers. The end result was a plain lacy support bra and matching lacy/silky panties. A stop at Kroger later than night facilitated my first pair of panty hose - a black pair of silk mist control toppers. - they ran very quickly. :-(

Somewhere in this time, I started to get dis-contented with work. The fact that the management was passing me over for good advancement opportunities and the number of available opportunities that I was actually interested in were becoming part of a smaller and smaller list led me to start dispersing resume's again and ultimately to cut my currently long hair short again in case any interviews were pending. (that and the fact that riding my motorcycle tended to cause the hair that hung out of my helmet to get ultimately all clotted up with road smog, dust and what have you)

So at this point, it was getting to be apparent that a wig may soon be in order... A quick look to the handy ole' Frederick's catalog gave my my first taste of just what I was in for. $75 and up!!! A venture out onto the WWW did not make things much better either. The cheapest I could find there that I liked the looks of was for about $55 plus shipping. There were not too many local wig shops either, with exception of a real cheesy shop in Ypsilanti that didn't really have anything that matched what I liked.

Resigning to the fact that I may have to fork out some dough, I decided it might be wise to at least find out whether or not I would look good in one before dolling out all the money to order it. My initial effort with the graphics tools resulted in narrowing my face a bit too much, but was cute so I have included it here. The second was a bit more accurate, and the third is actually the $55 wig that I referred to above. The final result ended up being not far from these pictures, but the delightful news is that the final result was cuter and more feminine that these. (see Caught up in the Limelight)

Fantasy - California Dreams (first attempt)

Face was too narrow - lips borrowed from a TG web site somewhere. Makeup added after the fact with some transparent paints in xpaint. Not true to life, but too cute to pass up showing it off. (I wish I could look this good)

Fantasy - California Dreams (second attempt)

This one turned out much more accurate - but as previously mentioned, I was delighted that the final result was actually BETTER!

This is the Samantha wig that was about $55

The "cut and paste" lines are a little more obvious in this one, but it did give me good idea that straight hair wigs would look good on me in either dark or medium blonde hair color.