Alexander Brandy, mark 1

[breakinglight11]

I've been wanting to create a drag look for myself for a while now, and I finally got around to doing a little experimenting this weekend. At the moment I'm calling my male persona "Alexander Brandy"-- because Alexander is my favorite male name, and I like drag names that are puns.

I haven't done that much yet and I'm going to have to perfect a lot of things. So I give you Alexander Brandy, mark 1. I've cut my head out because it's not masculinized in any way and I don't want it to distract:





I COULD NOT seem to get a great picture of myself, but these will do for now. I bought a pair of men's slacks and a men's dress shirt that were the closest to my size I could find. I want a full suit eventually, but I couldn't find anything that wasn't ridiculously huge on me, so this is what I went with for now. The shoes are from my dress shoe collection I use for the Mrs. Hawking wardrobe, and the tie was from somewhere in my costuming. I didn't have a men's belt, so I just used my plainest black leather one.

Underneath it, I put on a camisole and then bound my chest down with an ace bandage. I didn't do it anywhere near properly, but just quickly to get a look at things. Lucky for me, when I do it right I can get pretty much board-flat. I also bought a padded bra which I cut in half and used it to pad out my shoulders. As you can see, my hips are pretty flat in these trousers, as honestly they're not that round naturally. However, I think I had the belt too tight, as it drew the waistband of the pants in too much to emphasize what roundness is there. The padded shoulders help create the rudiments of a masculine triangle shape that I'd like for my upper body.

It's not bad for a start. The shirt in particular is too baggy, which makes it bell out in the back and gape at the neck. I suppose I shall be continually vexed by the fact that I'll never be the kind of man I find most attractive as I'm just too small, but I would like to do more to create that triangle-shaped torso, while not making the taper of my waist emphasize the swell of my hips. In that case, I have to make sure my hips appear to drop directly from the narrowest part of the waist. Not sure how to do that-- some kind of padding? The trousers are a hair too long so they're not quite breaking where they're supposed to, though honestly a lot of men wear them like that. The tie looks too short for some reason, even though it's hitting my belt buckle like it should be. Perhaps it's just because I'M so short, I should lengthen it to lengthen my torso. As a woman I like when my legs look long in comparison, but I'm not sure what would look more masculine.

I'll have to do research on hair and makeup. I don't want to cut my hair, but I'd like to find some way to style and conceal the length of it. I'd love to do a photoshoot when I have the look down to where I want it. Any idea, particularly suggestions from more experienced drag kings, would be welcome!

Comments

[laurion]

The wide stance and arms are overdoing it a bit. I know that men tend to fill the space around them to look bigger, but this looks a bit too forced.

[laurion]

The tie doesn't look short to me, but might be a bit wide. A slightly narrower tie will feel longer without being longer.

[breakinglight11.livejournal.com]

Good point. But the exaggerated stance is part of the fun! 😁

[kdsorceress.livejournal.com]

(For possible reference, I consider myself agender/genderfluid --mostly I don't have any gender at all, but sometimes I am Definitely Male or Definitely Female)

***

I have almost no useful input, but lots of squee --I like it when people mess with gender and presentation and perceptions and All That!

(Okay, fine, I have the obligatory "please don't use ace bandages to bind" warning, which I predict you already have heard, but someone ought to say it just in case.)

Using a padded bra for shoulder padding is a really interesting idea. I have never bothered to do much body sculpting beyond binding when I dress hard male. There's a certain extent to which my hair is always going to prevent me from coding "actually" as a dude (sigh) so there's only so much manipulation I'm willing to undergo, especially when I don't actually experience body dysphoria in any particular way.

If you're not already, looking in the "boys" section of wherever you get menswear might be a good idea. I wear a 14/16 boys in shirts, and I seem to recall that you are of a fairly similar size to me.

In Cambridge, there is a used menswear place (I think it's a tuxedo rental store that sells at a discount its old stock?) called Keezers. I have never been, but I've heard good things about it --I'd be happy to go with you sometime if you're interested! They would certainly sell suits!

It is my little queer dream to someday be able to afford some bespokemade-to-measure stuff from Duchess someday. Soooo nice! And totally here for the "sometimes female-assigned people want suits and sometimes they want to accent their female with them and sometimes they want to accent their male and we are completely indifferent because everyone needs a good suit!

OKAY I HAVE A LOT OF THOUGHTS ABOUT MENSWEAR! BYE!

~Sor

[jducoeur]

IIRC Keezers is mainly a used-suits shop -- don't recall if they rent tuxes, but they sell them cheaply enough that I can't imagine why somebody would rent one. I've always assumed they resell used tuxes from the Harvard crowd. I bought my first several tuxes there...

[londo.livejournal.com]

I have some ties I can lend you that may help.

[qnmark.livejournal.com]

I think we both know men, or male-presenting people, with longer hair than you. As far as I can tell, there are two things they do with their hair:

1. They don't keep it very tidy. It naturally falls to the back, or to the sides. The result can look either unkempt or really hot, depending on the person.

2. They braid it. The examples I can think of include a single pigtail, but I think I've also seen people with ponytails.