Where have all the dresses gone.

In our part of the world, it depends on where you are and what store you go to. If you go to the W**mart, you'll blend in if you have a sweat suit and sneakers. Make sure you don't wear any makeup as most of the female clientel don't either, mess up your hair and walk funny. I'm not trying to be cruel, it's just my observations of late. Now on the other hand, go to center city during lunch time near the legal offices and all the GGs are wearing skirt suits and heels.

So this brings up the point that one of the other posters made. GGs and blending in CDrs need to know where they are going, who they'll be meeting with, what the weather is like, who else will be there, how far do they have to walk. I'll wear 4"heels for a short walk, but switch to 3" heels for longer walks. For guys, it's do I wear my sneakers or work shoes, jeans or shorts and do I need a coat. The rest of us have to think of everything.. Heck, I'm planning my outfit for Monday and it's only Saturday. I've already checked the weather, figured out where I'm going and have almost finalized the outfit but just not sure on the colors yet.

This really is the fun part .... right?

Renne.....

Sorry, but I'm not sure where the CDs on this forum live with all of these supposedly homely women. Even in Ala-freaking-Bama, USA, we get out of our overalls long enough to get dolled up. (That was sarcasm, people).

In the summer and spring, it's just too dang hot to wear jeans!!! I rarely see a GG in the summer wearing jeans. Not in 100 degree weather and humidity...nope...never gonna happen. Cute shorts are really hard to find too. I think most of us grew out of the denim shorts and skirt phase with middle school. I just don't think they look good except on the beach. This is actually where I see them most of the time, and I feel it's appropriate. I'd say 90% of the women in the summer here wear sundresses and skirts. During the spring, it's pretty much the same.

But, honey, it ain't spring anymore in this part of the woods. So, most of the time, I see women wearing the skinny jeans with boots combination, or the skirt and boots combo. It looks pretty feminine to me.

I spend most of my life living out of a suitcase and bouncing around the map, so I just am unsure of these rocks y'all live under. I haven't noticed a shortage in good looking, well-dressed women!!! And, believe me, I'm looking!! :)

Sunday morning is like a damned fashion show.

Why do men dress so nasty now? It reminds me of this clip from Clueless almost every day that I wake up in the morning. I always feel overdressed when standing next to a man and it makes me not want to get as dolled up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xevjs_dtkk8

Maybe you need to talk to GMs and tell them that when they start looking a bit nicer, I won't feel so out of place next to them when I look like I rolled off a magazine cover. JUS' SAYIN'

http://cdn1.teen.com/wp-content/uplo...tupid-love.jpg

^^ Give me a guy dressing like that (Ryan Gossling in Crazy, Stupid Love...great movie, btw) and my clothes will just hop off of my body. Literally, I'll see you and my clothes will just fly off as if magnetized.

I never have to worry about this though because guys just roll out of bed and expect me to be all over them. Maybe THIS IS WHY I AM BISEXUAL! I had to COMPENSATE somewhere along the line. Sheeeeeesh

You can count me as one of those males who enjoys seeing women dressed nicely (according to my idea of nice!) in skirts or dresses. I work in New York City, where quite a few women wear skirts or dresses, even in the winter.

But I am also aware that the women who cross my line of sight have their own lives and their own reasons for what they wear. Some of the reasons women might not wear nice clothes or might not wear skirts or dresses (note that "nice clothes" might not be "skirts or dresses" and vice versa) have already been mentioned, but here are a few other thoughts:

Back when (and where) I was growing up, girls were required to wear skirts (or dresses) to school, to church, and to most social functions. It was very much about social control -- about having "ladylike behavior" pounded into your brain, about not getting to climb trees or play in the dirt, about school officials' dress code requirements and their sometimes degrading enforcement of them, and, of course, about the boys taunting you with "I see London, I see France" if you didn't stand or sit just so. I would be surprised if this didn't sour a lot of women of my generation on the idea of ever wearing skirts or dresses.

There are even now quite a few jobs where women are expected to dress up, where that includes knee-length skirts, pantyhose, and high heels. One woman of my acquaintance has a sales job (client representative or something like that), where she has to trek all over NYC in that sort of outfit. Year round. It's hot in the summer, cold in the winter, and hell on her feet even if she doesn't slip on the ice or stumble on bad pavement. She could choose to wear more practical clothes -- if she didn't mind getting fired the next day (if not sooner.) They need the money, so she dresses as she is required. Do I need to say that she wears pants (and no heels!) at home? So when I see a woman dressed "nicely," even while I'm enjoying it, I also wonder -- is she doing this because she wants to, or is it just one of those unpleasant things she has to do to keep her job and pay the rent?

Finally, as far as most people of both sexes "dressing down" more than they used to: my theory is that most people have never been all that interested in looking nice for its own sake. For most of human history, how one dressed was about one's social status. Formal and fancy dress was about demonstrating that one did not belong to a lower class, because one was rich enough to afford the clothes. (This is still true in some circles -- you don't buy a $10,000 dress simply to look good, you do it to impress people.) This trickled all the way down the social scale, although exactly what was required (or allowed) depended upon your class. Now that this has changed -- the idle rich no longer prove their idle richness by dressing up, now they prove it by showing that they don't have to conform to anything as plebian as an employer's dress code -- most people (both male and female) dress in whatever is easiest. Only those who like dressing for its own sake (or are in situations where they have to) bother any more.

On the other hand, anybody who wants to be seen as remotely fashionable goes to the gym regularly, or even obsessively. Plus ca change....

Shananegans is right. It's not just the women who are dressing down these days. It's everyone. As a society, we have lost something in the way of self assurance and self respect, along with respect for our institutions and for each other. We are a nation of slobs, who don't care any longer how others perceive us.

As for the whining about women no longer wearing dresses, I'd urge our fair ladies who grace us with their presence on this forum to consider the crowd that's doing the whining: a bunch of guys who absolutely love wearing dresses themselves, who do so at a frequency much greater than most real girls, and who would prefer to see them worn all the time every day be women everywhere. Consider the source.

It's sad that some CD's dress more femme than GG's now. I wish I lived in the days when girls actually wore dresses, garters and stockings on a regular basis.

I don't know ... dresses and skirts, etc. are all nice, as is variety. But fashionable, well-chosen casual clothing is very feminine, too. Garters, stockings, etc. really don't even register for me.

Lea

Dressing nice for an occasion, or the job is great, but as for my wife, she never wears dresses, or skirts, and I just don't care, she's not my size anyway, so I can't borrow them. Shananegans is right, theres nothing funnier than a bunch of guys in scruffy jeans and an old tee shirt and tennis shoes talking about how women don't dress nice enough. When was the last time you went to the mall in a pair of slacks and a sports coat, June Cleavers husband Ward, never wore jeans that I remember. Women are the practical ones, and will wear what is right for what they are doing, where they are going, and what the weather is. Men dress up for work, church and when the wife makes them. Looking for a mate, might be the only exception to this rule. But remember, at least enough women are out there buying, so I assume wearing, dresses,that they still make dresses, I don't think we are a large enough market, that they would still make them just for Crossdressers.
Tina B.