Model Arisce Wanzer is on the cover of the new issue of Spiegel, an American retail catalog, making her the first transgender model to grace the 111-year-old magazine's cover.

Wanzer is also one of the transgender models profiled on the Strut series.

Valentina Sampaio

Models getting their own magazine cover these days is exceedingly rare and (Karlie Kloss might be pretty but the Kardashians sell copies), but Valentina Sampaio fronts ELLE Brazil’s November issue. 

So what makes this woman whose last name isn’t Hadid or Jenner worthy of such an honor? While Sampaio’s beauty is remarkable, the cover is important for another reason: it marks another small step for diversity in the fashion industry because Sampaio is a transgender woman. The 19-year-old’s latest shoot is just the latest contribution to the fashion industry’s efforts to be more gender inclusive. 

Halloween Archive Post (2014)

As I look back over the years on the blog, it amazes me how much ground we have covered! Even though much of it is so similar.

Wednesday, October 1, 2014

"Tis" The Season-Almost

"As I look out the front windows here in Cyrsti's Condo, I see the trees donning their yellows and reds for fall fashion and- of course my mind wanders past fashion toHalloween.

Rightly or wrongly, Halloween has left indelible marks in my noggin.  When I was a kid and all the way through college to my Army days, I never dressed as a girl for parties.  Not to say I didn't want to desperately, just didn't have the courage to do it (which turned out to be my problem for nearly five decades.)

Once I did begin to celebrate Halloween in all sorts of feminine costumes, quickly I learned two basics.  The first was I didn't want to wait a whole year to cross dress again in public.  The second was, beware of compliments.  It took me years to figure out I wasn't some sort of deity who could "make" a good looking woman and if I was indeed attractive was it because I was a guy cross dressing as a woman?

Looking back, the problem was, these experiences just were opening  a gender Pandora's Box. If you take one of the definitions literally, the phrase "to open Pandora's box" means to perform an action that may seem small or innocent, but that turns out to have severely detrimental and far-reaching consequences.  How true it was, those early Halloween adventures were detrimental to me because I spent years trying to learn and then conceal being transgender.  "Far reaching" speaks for itself.

On the other hand, I was able to have several incredible Halloween experiences. Many of which we will write about in October! And! I would love to write about yours too!"

Still goes!