We Got Mail!

In a recent Cyrsti's Condo post I referred to an experience I enjoyed when I met Stana of the Femulate blog fame - and as it turned out leg fame.  The post simply mentioned how her legs had guys bumping into walls.  I did make one mistake though in the post, she (Stana) is 6'2" without heels!  She is living proof you can be older -more mature :)- and tall and sow off those dynamite legs of yours if you do it right...
Here's Stana's comment:  Thank you for the very kind words, Cyrsti! And by the way, I am 6'2" 
without heels!

I "calls em like I sees em Stana!" Speaking of "sees em."  For years I used to play the game of positioning myself where I could see over my wife's shoulder and still make eye contact with her when needed.  Of course she knew that too and it became sort of an a "cat and mouse" game.  When I met Stana, I just happened to be in a situation where the same thing happened!

Some time ago I posted a rhetorical question asking which transgender model would break the Victoria's Secret "trans barrier." Would she be Carmen Carerra or Andreja Pejic? (below)  Mandy Sherman's vote was-

Both are gorgeous...but my vote's with Andreja. Just because...

I don't know Mandy but have a notion to lean with Andreja also.  Only because of her enormous amount of modeling experience, name and body style.  I think Carmen deserves it because she has worked harder at getting it but is blessed with a curvier feminine body which doesn't necessarily "mesh" with what Victoria Secret's marketing audience is.

Unfortunately, like everything else, it's as simple as "following the money."  Would signing either help their (Victoria's) bottom line?

Continuing my continuous quest to not keep putting my foot in my mouth (before someone else but their's up another part of my body) - at one point I did go back a change my reference to Stana's age as "more mature." Along the way I also made an attempt to refer to Paula's interests as "more unique."   She responded:

I like that "unique tastes"! Doesn't everybody like Gardens and Brass Bands?  Why yes Paula! I'm sure they do! (wink)

Finally, Linda Marie Daniels commented on Woman less pageant participant Spencer:

Spencer looks amazing! Really a natural. I'd be surprised if this was the first time Spencer wore a dress.

Yes! He certainly didn't just "throw this on" on hit the runway!  What really got me were his "poses".  He was either heavily coached or self taught to throw the shoulders back, rock the legs and work the runway.  Who knows, maybe his favorite show was Tyra Banks Top Model ?

LADIES! Thanks for the comments! Love em and you!

 

Cyrsti's Condo "Cover Girl" of the Day

Our feature cover today is the androgynous model from Singapore Andrew Semuel.  As a sidelight, I wonder if Andrej Pejic's coming out as transgender will encourage more of the male to female models these days to do the same?

Of Course he IS!

It was just a matter of time. The androgynous super model Andrej Pejic modeling as a man and a woman for the MCM Spring Line. This photo is almost spooky in a clone sense!

"Tranversals" Cyrsti's Condo Cover Girls of the Day

Andrej Pejic

I happened across an eclectic  site called "Anne of Carversville". It's claim to fame is "From Fashion to Flogging, telling Women's Stories."  Of interest to me of course was the "Transversal" page which featured extensive coverage of androgynous and transsexual models such as Andrej Pejic and Lea T.


Go here for more.

Lea T

If You Don't Succeed...

If you don't succeed, switch teams?

From theFrisky

:


"You might recognize Elliott Sailors from her days of modeling bikinis and evening gowns. At age 31, practically ancient in the world of fashion, Sailors’ gigs started to become more few and far between. So, she made a bold decision to save her career: to start modeling as a man. Sailors’ buzzed off her long, blonde hair and started showing up to castings with her breasts bound, wearing flannel shirts, ripped jeans, boots and biker jackets. And, as you might guess from this photo, it worked. “I’m starting over to have a longer career. Men don’t need to look as young as possible, so I have a lot of time,” Sailors told The New York Post.

As counter intuitive as the decision may seem, Sailors’ said it was an easy one for her to make because she always thought she looked manly.“Earlier on in my career, I would get frustrated because I thought I looked too masculine. I have a strong jaw, wide forehead, huge eyebrows. I thought I looked like a man wearing makeup,” she said.

Sailors’ husband, who is totally supportive of her male modeling career, says that the only thing he didn’t expect about his wife “passing” as man was how people would see him differently, as the pair often get mistaken for a gay couple."

Now we need to see a photo shoot with Elliot Sailors and Andrej Pejic! (left)

Fashion, Style and the Trans Girl

Transgender, cross dresser and genetic women alike all are effected by fashion and style.  For the sake of simplicity, let's define fashion as the "concrete" basics of clothing, shoes, accessories etc.  Style is the innate ability to put fashion together.

To be sure, this whole process at once can be the most challenging and fun part of being a girl, or a way ticket to frustration. For better -or worse- fashion/style is dropped into our laps as we enter the world of the high maintenance gender and one of the initial reasons we came snooping.

Most of us can remember a certain girl or woman in our past we wanted to emulate.  We yearned to be the girl next door in a frilly Easter dress or a sleek Prom gown. It just couldn't be that difficult to put those feminine images together, right?  Wrong!

Sooner more than later we learned the "angst" of trying to not do an effective Bozo the clown impression in a dress.  Of course a huge problem was not having Mom or girlfriends contributing to a positive outcome. Self taught fashion/style takes a lot of work and finances. It is not easy maintaining dual gender wardrobes, most of the time under lock and key.

Luckily today our options have exploded.  Plus size clothing has grown ever so stylish over the years, discount purchase options have exploded and self help guides are everywhere on line and on television. Along the way cross dressers and transgender women have even become a desired potential market for cash hungry retailers.

No matter what anyone may think, nothing has really changed though for me in the challenge of making myself as fashion/style successful as possible. Plus it excites me the process will always be a fluid one which changes with the seasons and age.

Interestingly, I can't even figure out the right colors to paint my house trim but I can color coordinate from my fingernails to my clothes, jewelry and shoes. If you ask me why, the only answer I can come up with is how closely I watched and watch the rest of the feminine population for most of my life. Once I figured I wasn't dressing for men but instead women, I was on a better path to success. Why?

My best example is my own days of squeezing into too tight or too short clothes and blissfully attacking the world. My problem was I was trying to duplicate what I often admired as a guy looking at women.  None of it worked because of course I didn't have the body for what I was trying to do.  Finally, even I recognized women do dress for each other and if I was to be included I would have to also.

Safe to say I (along with the vast majority of the female population) will never be an Andrej Pejic. (right) But on the other hand, I love the lure of the hunt for fashion pieces which fit my style on a budget I can afford.

It's also safe to say this entire process has been and will be an incredible amount of fun and lends all the "pizzazz" I thought it would to my life as a transgender woman!

BoHo and the Bad Ass Girl

As fall approaches in my part of the world, of course fashion changes too. It's time to move my "boho" style (shown by model on left)....

 to more of a "bad girl" style with my black leather coat and boots. Shown by the model in the montage on the right.

I know what you are thinking already. "Look Cyrsti, you and I both can't and shouldn't attempt some of these looks, for any number of reasons." You are totally correct. If you are pencil thin and look like Andrej Pejic, I'm thinking you probably aren't reading this anyhow! I'm certainly neither and have the "age appropriate" fashion problems too!

What we all can do is adapt certain elements of the fashion trends to our own styles and then go deep discount shopping to find the pieces.

Remember, there is always a sale somewhere girls and I think all of these style challenges are one of the best parts of being a girl. Here's my saying "I may have not been able to pull it off but I shopped to death trying to do it!"

Here are couple of sites to further the cause Free People  and Betty Confidential to take a look at. Then if you are like me, here's the process I go through:
1.- Subtract the pieces which are age and body inappropiate.
2.- Subtract the pieces I can't afford.
3.- Check my closet for items which may be similar I can use.
4.- Value shop for new fashion appropriate pieces to add.

As I always say here in Cyrsti's Condo, thrift stores are great places to find classic adds to your wardrobe or make classic blunders.  One way or another you don't get classically hit in your finances.

Androgyny in Vogue?

Well at the least,  androgynous super model Andrej Pejic Is posing almost nude in the Brazilian Vogue magazine!

That's in vogue - right?

The Pedestal or the Heels?

It's Sunday morning here again in Cyrsti's Condo and I assume elsewhere.  Last night I had the pleasure of spending the night with a couple other transgender friends-one trans man and another trans woman. We went  to a local gay venue with a show and before the room got too loud to talk easily we exchanged stories about transitioning and our current and past relationships.This morning it occurred to me our get together was historic in the sense the venue we were in probably had never seen three out and proud transgender people together at once. At the least our little group was educational to a largely uniformed gay populace.

My problem is as I basked in my own smugness, I had to remind myself of how slippery my pedestal can be.   So I took a moment to thank Mother Karma of what I've become and how I have become it. In the end, we are only the sum total of our actions in life. As I gingerly climbed back down from my pedestal I read about Andrej Pejic's painful idea to put me back on one:


"Andrej Pejic apparently wants to launch his own shoe line–just don’t expect them to be comfortable. “The shoes are going to be called Codeine Heels, because you need codeine [to wear] the best heels,” he told WWD. We think we’ll just stick to good old fashioned bandaids rather than bust out the sizzurp. Pejic hopes that shoes will be a part of his own fashion line, which he says will soon debut with (presumably comfortable) t-shirts. Quoted from Fashionista."


I guess I better start starving myself with cotton balls soaked in orange juice, stock up on pain killers and start hoarding pennies to get a pair..to fall off of.

Pejic Meets Warhol

"Edie"

As with many others, it seems we can't get enough of super model Andrej Pejic here in Cyrsti's Condo.

Recently we posted his new cover of the Serbian Elle and even briefly discussed him in a comment response from Gina.
Now he has surfaced in a fashion feature for the luxury magazine DuJour.  Not that Pejic doesn't look stunning in everything he does, but this feature channels Andrej recreating the looks of several Andy Warhol icons. Of course one can only speculate how intrigued Warhol would be with Pejic if he was alive today. 

"Candy Darling"

Here's an excerpt from DuJour from Glenn O'Brien (who actually knew Warhol): "Andrej is as pretty as Candy, although I’m not sure who is the more feminine character. Being feminine was definitely harder for a boy in the old days." He also goes on to state: "Andy would have been fascinated by Andrej. He liked pretty boys, and he liked boys who could impersonate girls. Andy thought boys made the best actresses because they could be more objective about femininity, and they didn’t have to worry so much about being politically correct in one’s femininity."

There are a couple more pictures and more for you by following the DuJour link above.

We've Got Mail!

Recently I ran a post called Skip the Makeup here in Cyrsti's Condo.  It's Gina's blog and she was good enough to drop me a comment back. I mentioned the lack of any mention of Andrej Pejic in her mention of transgender models. Rightfully so, as Pejic has never outed himself as transgender. for whatever reason. 

Here's more of Gina's comment!

"Heh, thanks for the mention of my rather neglected blog. Mostly, for the past 2 years, I've just been reviewing books and films with trans characters rather than doing cultural commentary. I think that post was before Andrej appeared but, moreover, he's never identified himself as transgender (from what he says about himself, he sounds somewhat genderqueer but doesn't call himself that). I would never ID someone as trans if they didn't personally identify that way. Needless to say, since I wrote that there have already been a lot more stories about trans models (especially in Brazil) and at least 2 or 3 more androgynes like Pejic. Really, my post was more about how people make every trans accomplishment sound like a "first time" (when those boundaries had been broken decades before) and how people project concepts like "androgyny" onto trans women whether they look even vaguely androgynous or not."

Thanks Gina for the comment and bringing back some of the transgender models of the past!

Pejic Fronts Again

Andrej Pejic, an androgynous model who made headlines throughout the year of 2012, made another history by becoming the first male model to be featured on the cover of Elle Serbia.

"Trans-tainment Tonight"

From the UK: "X-Factor's" Rylan Clark kissing a transgender model who looks suspiciously like Andrej Pejic. (She isn't)

More Pejic

From the Huffington Post Stylelist comes an interesting Q&A with super model Andrej Pejic.

Of particular interest to me was the question of SRS:
    You were once quoted as saying that you would have a sex change for Victoria's Secret, do you still stand by that? "(Laughs) Yes I do. Definitely. In all seriousness, though, is a sex change operation something you plan on doing in the future? I like to keep all options open, but I like to think that is a personal thing. I don't talk about that very much.

   Also the subject of being added to a list of the world's sexiest women:

    Another recent controversy was when FHM listed you as number 98 on its "100 Sexiest Women In The World" story. They subsequently removed you from the list and issued an apology.
" I found it as flattering as any woman would. It's great, but I never thought that I would become a sex symbol. To be seen like that is exploring another type of beauty, being accepting and breaking a boundary."

Follow the link above for more!

Pejic in Paris

More Andrej Pejic from a recent Paris show!

"Bishonen"

Yet another term! "Bishonen" literally means "beautiful boy" and is "Yohio's" preferred term for himself.

And another famous "Bishonen":

Andrej Pejic

Andrej Pejic Bridal Pictures!

Well in actuality Andrej Pejic  paraded down the catwalk  in a stunning bridal gown, for Spanish designer Rosa Clara during Barcelona’s 22nd Bridal Week.
Every ounce of my inner female just wants to dislike him! :)

.

The Next Transgendered Model From the UK?

Perhaps the next transsexual model will be from the UK.

"Cambell"

Cambell Kenneford, 16, dreamed of being a female model - despite being
born a man. At the least, she has the "Andrej Pejic" style of body.
Now the student, from Leighton Buzzard in Bedfordshire, plans to get
gender realignment surgery following two years of hormone treatment
which has recently been approved by doctors.

"Andrej Pejic"

Previously the teen had suffered cruel taunts and violence at the
hands of classmates who called him 'gay.'

The heavily made-up teen now turns heads by dressing like film star
Lindsay Lohan.

Cambell said: 'I was bullied for years and called 'gay' but I always
knew it was something else

'I started painting my nails and growing my hair when I was 11. Now I
like girly outfits. I wear hot pants, high heels and tight tops all the
time.

'Some people say I look a lot like Lindsay Lohan, which I love.'

Somehow I think "Cambell" may want to consider her resemblance to "Andrej" especially with a few of "Lohan's" jail pictures recently!

Poetic Justice?

It takes a male supermodel (Andrej Pejic) to model a push up bra!

The Prettiest Boy In The World

Model sensation Andrej Pejic may indeed be the prettiest boy in the world and is the model of gender contradictions.
A recent example is when he went to meet the Queen of England in a skirt. Pejic described his outfit that night to  "British Vogue":
"I'm wearing a Paul Smith blazer, because I wanted to wear at least one British designer, with a vintage Versace pencil skirt and just some heels," Pejic told us as he got ready for the event. "I wanted to just be myself - androgynous - and play with the masculine blazer and pencil skirt. It's also a bit Nineties, which I love."
Whilst not transgender, Pejic is comfortable to dress in women's
clothes if the shoot or show demands it but, far from being the blank
canvas he hoped, this has seen him pigeonholed as part of the new
gender "trend" - a phenomenon which also includes Brazilian
transsexual model Lea T.

Pejic has commented that both models are placed in the same
 category, but our look is very different.  He said  "Lea has been extremely brave in being very honest about her journey - but I don't
 really see myself as being here to challenge transgender stereotypes. I'm just myself. It's taken a while to be
taken seriously,  but I hope to prove that I'm very versatile and that
I'll still be here after the phenomenon has passed."

Or when he gets the sex change he said he would get to land a "Victoria's Secret" contract?