Miss Androgyny: Beautiful Men, Handsome Women

It’s never been good for a boy to be pretty; nor has it ever been good for a girl to be masculine, but in an alternate world, life takes on a few different standards and in some of the larger facets of my world, namely K-Pop and fashion models, anything goes. 

First, redefining the idea of “girly man” would be Choi Minki of NU’EST.

    

Maybe I just appreciate pretty things. Maybe this is a testament to my profession as a teacher that I like it when things are done well and Minki’s concept was done well…almost too well. Depending on the angle, he easily blurs the line between male and female, while at other times he is just a really beautiful boy. I think any person, regardless of biological sex cannot help if they are beautiful. For a guy, would this be a quality worth playing down when, evolutionarily, it can be advantageous? The main male opinion in my life commented that only manly men could earn both the admiration of women as well as the respect of men, but I feel that before gaining admiration or respect, you have to gain interest and curiosity. Being the most popular member, I feel the pretty boy has done that more so than his more manly peers in the group. People recognize that it is his concept and not necessarily his own choosing to wear headbands, and his hair in updos. Oh Boy George! Minki looks like he came out of a Madonna music video. As a matter of fact, the majority of the comments about him are either from girls enamored with his prettiness, or boys questioning their sexual preferences (Talk about pushing love to the Borderline!). The beauty of the entire thing is that currently his feminine beauty is being played up to an extreme; that is not to say that Minki is not capable of being a beautiful manly man. Beauty definitely has a bias on the female of the species in the human realm, but Michaelangelos “David” is both strong and beautiful and so are many depictions of Greco-Roman gods. The world is watching to see how he develops.

On a semi related note, here’s my favorite member of NU’EST, Minhyun. 

I like this pose for him because  1) it shows off his Adams apple. 2) It reminds me of this 

Amanda Moore's Vogue Italia cover.

 The first time I ever heard of a woman being handsome was Mr. Darcy referring to Elizabeth Bennet in “The Pride and Prejudice.” While she was pretty, I found handsome fitting in reference to her strength and spunk. (Sigh) masculine adjectives always get the more fun associations. Generally, a female being masculine is worse than a man being feminine. Amanda Moore may not be overly feminine, she may not be everyone’s cup-of-tea, but I find her pretty freaking awesome. Girls who can walk this line are cool (KPOP reference, f(x)’s Amber).

 Recall that this is coming from someone whose favorite Sailor Moon Scout was Sailor Uranus. I'm not bashing on girly girls, but masculine features on a woman can be worth playing up: cheek bones, jaw line, sleek frame. Not everyone has the ability to look sharp. I see it as worth emphasizing. Good looking is good looking regardless of who it's on.

If it doesn't already stick out, I’m a massive fan of androgyny. I find it interesting and I don’t need to explain myself. 

Moreso, I like the being able to emphasize features of the opposite sex while maintaining being myself, being a girl. It's like a drag queen taking her makeup off at the end of the day. I like that men can be beautiful like women. I like the lines and movements that a lot good male dancers can achieve and it’s mad cool when I see women do that (reference: Rino Nakasone). While I can’t say I’m a fan of testosterone fed manly men, I do like womanly women like Marilyn Monroe and Christina Hendricks, but for me, being THAT feminine looking is impractical. I have a smaller sleeker frame, my waist to hip ratio is not as extreme, my jaw-line is a little square. As a result, I pull menswear off pretty nicely. I’m pretty good with slim dresses and pencil skirts also. I’m just making the best of my features which fall a little more in the average range between horribly manly and voluptuously girly. I can admire Amanda Moore and Choi Minki’s abilities to play the second guess gender game. I can admire the extremes. I'm working just fine with what I have. 

2 pc & a biscuit - 3 lessons

One thing about joblessness is that all the extra time you have goes towards body criticism that you wouldn't have had the time for or would not have even noticed if you had a job. Prior to the start of my job, I was feeling quite chunky. I imagine that my frequent cravings for chicken fried steak didn't help matters.

In my experience, any stressful situation brings some kind of weight loss either through the lack of ability to eat regularly, or something of the like. Also, for some reason, I just get fatter in San Antonio. Anyway...

My sister is getting married! And all of her sister's get to be bridesmaids!


Don't we all look happy? I find that I look rather jobless (chunky), but also, my dress was suppose to look like this:


Let me just say, I think the gathering at the waist was too extreme and added too much puff. All of the extra tulle did not help. Among other things you notice, my sister in the middle seems like a bit of the oddball out.

Lesson #1: To the hospitable bride...

My eldest sister's approach to her wedding was to take everything that irritated her about weddings and not do that. So, in addition to paying for the bridesmaid dresses she also let us pick out the style and only required that the color be the same.

Initially, I picked out a short taffeta dress, Irene picked out the longest chiffon dress and Elie picked out the tea length satin dress. Mine came out longer and more puffy than expected. Elie's dress was actually made of taffeta too and Irene's dress...there is no chiffon with a sheen, at least not with this dress so hers looks different. Hence this is the extreme that results from too much freedom on the bridesmaids side.

Really, if a bride wants to be hospitable, it should be one or the other. Let us pick our dresses and make us pay, or make us wear the same dress and (the bride) pay for it. Also, pick the color AND the material. It'll save a lot of tears later. My elder sister lucked out and got two dresses out of the deal.

Lesson #2: Seriously, take advantage of custom measurements and get seamstress measurements

I told my (bride) sister that and she ended up just taking her own measurements and her dress came out looser than expected. If you're going to go custom with the measurements, have a seamstress do it.

Among other things, take advantage of custom measurements if you can. Not only did my dress come out ridiculously long, it was severely puffy. I put too much trust in the standard sizes. So my dress is in the works, I ripped it up and re-pinned the skirt:

even then, I decided that my dress was still too puffy and I ripped it up more and tore out the tulle:


and now it's pretty much where I want it to be. I still need to sew it, and hand sewing really sucks, but at least everything else is ready. The dress even looks more like the original and the puffy-ness is now more from the gathering at the waist than any of the leftover tulle inside. Man, I look like crap in both of those pictures.

Would there have been a way to get a puffy-ass bubble hem shortened and also the tulle ripped out of the puff for less than $50? Only if grandma were home.

Lesson #3: Be wary of ordering times

The bride to be was rather eager to get these dresses out of the way, so she bought them while I was unemployed and taking out my depression on chicken fried anything. My presumption was that I was going to remain at my current chunk, or at least close to it, so I went one size larger since the smaller size seemed too tight and the larger size seemed like it would fit fine. The tufts of cloth at the sides will tell you otherwise. What was even worse was coming back to Austin, getting a job and losing more chub. Just when I thought I'd actually have to go to the tailors on this one, I found that the easier route to getting the dress to fit: a 2 piece & a biscuit

heck yeah!

$5 for fried chicken is way better than $55 for alterations on a dress I'm not going to wear very often. So that's the plan, before the wedding - a 2pc & a biscuit.

Oi me

Howdy! School's been busy, but more so, I've just been lazy. The weather is more fall like and I still haven't posted up the pictures of my auction previews. After some rather cool pictures I took of my clothes, I decided to redo the lingerie and shoe pictures. I suppose I can post up the clothing pictures in the meantime.

I'm currently at school and my pictures are on my computer at home. I suppose I should be studying anyway, but that's always the case.

Among other things, I recently had a birthday. Self celebration is expensive. I bought myself some birthday presents from Betsey Johnson and Anthropologie. Seeing as I can elaborate on those a little later (with pictures), I'll just go on to another lesson learned the hard way.

On the last blog I had decided to get the cut I want in pants, I have to buy wide legs and have them tapered. Turns out, pants can only be taken in to where they don't distort the overall line of the pants so - tapering wide legs? Unless I would be able to try on the pre and post alteration pairs, I could not see a difference. You live, you learn, it costs.

Dress like you mean it

I hear that when it comes to being a teacher dress is a sensitive subject. We definitely have to keep our wardrobe in line because our clothing choices affect the students ability to respect us, take us seriously, and it may also become the topic of some non-flattering conversation. That's too much to contend with in the classroom and we haven't touched on curriculum.

In talking with a few acquaintances of mine, I discovered that they were both teachers and they, upon discovering that I was studying to be a teacher, just delved in and gave me the straight talk on how to go about social order in the classroom. Don't smile, don't try to be their friends, when you walk in - mean business. I don't know if I'm taking it to an extreme, but I thought for the first few weeks in school, I would wear nothing but black. It'll put the many various pairs of black trousers I bought to use. I'll also be quiet and expressionless.

I tend to have an expressionless look on my face most of the time. Oddly enough, when I try to smile, I look mad angry. I'm a fairly quiet person.

I recently started my Analytical Chemistry lab and my TA came in wearing a lab coat. I was extremely intimidated. suppose it shows that I'm not above any high school mentality to judge someone by their clothes. When I told him that, he said not to worry, he's a nice guy, just quiet. I've been working on my aura of intimidation for a while - turns out, all I need is a lab coat.