Article: Wanna look butch without a dick?

G

Guest

Guest
New label throws fashion a curve Company makes clothes for women who prefer masculine style - Rona Marech, SF Chronicle, December 17, 2004

Sometimes the pants bunch up in all the wrong places, or the necklines sag, or sleeves hang past wrists, or shirts balloon preposterously. Forget about buying a nicely tailored suit or renting a tuxedo. For women who prefer minimalist men's clothing styles over stereotypically feminine, frilly garb, the pickings are slim. Women's clothing departments leave them cold. The men's clothes they tend to buy rarely fit properly. Clothes shopping is often torture.

This barren sartorial landscape was brightened last week when Aisha Pew and Breonna Cole of Oakland launched Studded, a label billing itself as the first line of clothes made expressly for butch lesbians, studs, transgender men and bois -- all au courant terms for people who lean masculine in their presentation or identity. The clothes look like what you might find in a men's department, but the design slyly accounts for the fact that women are curvier than men.

Those who would question whether lesbians care about fashion beyond flannel would have found their answer last week at a fashion show at Oakland's Parkway Theater. More than 100 people were turned away from the sold-out event. The lucky 180 who made it inside noisily cheered as models walked down the aisles -- escorted by women in tight, slinky dresses -- then turned, strutted and posed on the stage. They gave Pew, the designer, a standing ovation.

"Seeing the frustration in my wife's face" -- when she shops for clothes -- "is ridiculous to me," Pew said. Decidedly not butch, she has energetic hair that reaches impressive heights in front and a pierced eyebrow and chin. She had dressed for the occasion in a flirty black-and-white polka dot BCBG Max Azria dress with a halter top. "The point of it is bigger than clothes. It's about feeling good on the outside and representing who you are on the inside," she told the crowd. "This is about you."

Think Paris Hilton and cleavage-enhancing cocktail dresses, then sprint for the other end of the clothing spectrum to picture the 20 pants and 18 shirts that comprise the Studded basics collection. The $55 to $85 pants -- gray flannels and brown corduroys and elegant plaids -- have a plain front and a straight hang. The simple, button-down shirts with collars run from $32 to $55 and range in color from burgundy to black, green and blue.

Audience members lingered long after the end of the runway show, the burlesque performance and the halftime butch-femme dating game to sift through the samples on the rack in the lobby and -- though they weren't supposed to -- try on the clothes. Joe Su strolled out of the bathroom in a gray-and-white striped shirt. "The sleeves fit perfectly. The neck is perfect," said Su, 32. "They're filling a void that's been in the community for a long time."

Patricia St. Onge, Cole's mother, had watched the show enthusiastically from the front row. "The clothes are just right," she said. "They help them move in the world in a way they feel comfortable. You could feel it in the way they came and went from the stage and the energy in the room."

Anne Hollander, a fashion writer and author of "Sex and Suits," said that historically, lesbians who wanted to wear men's suits have had them custom- made -- if they had the money -- but such clothes, tailored to women's bodies, have never been available off-the-rack. She was intrigued. "Ha-ha! Well, that's wonderful! It's such a creative idea," she said. Everything, she added, seems to start in the Bay Area.

A few days after the fashion show, Pew, 24, and Cole, 26, still aglow from their success, spoke about their fledgling business at a downtown Oakland coffee shop. The story of their company goes back to their first meeting in a San Francisco club in 2003. They fell in love, moved in, and tried to figure out how to mesh their giant life ambitions: Cole, a grant writer with a political and community organizing background (she's the daughter of former Oakland City Councilman Wilson Riles), dreams of running for office. Pew, a Wesleyan University graduate with a master's degree in jurisprudence and social policy from UC Berkeley, thinks secretary of state might just suit her.

But before they could put their plan into action, Cole's 11-month-old niece unexpectedly came to live with them. The baby was always filthy, as babies are wont to be, and it occurred to Pew that a one-piece jumpsuit with changeable front panels that snapped on and off would help matters. Thus the "snapsie" and the clothing company Chocolate Baby Designs were born.

Around the same time, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom ordered the city to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Cole proposed, and the couple married in City Hall. Pew found the perfect, celebratory yellow dress for their engagement party, but Cole -- who identifies herself as a stud, a synonym for butch that some African Americans prefer -- was having major outfit trauma. "I was dragging her from store to store. She doesn't get mad, but I could tell how miserable she was," Pew said. At first, Pew figured her girlfriend simply hated to shop. "Then it hit me that it had nothing to do with the purchase of great clothes," Pew said. The truth was "the clothes weren't great."

Lightbulb No. 2 went off, and they embarked on a two-woman crusade against what they see as the fashion world's excessive allegiance to gender lines. They went to a patternmaker and then a seamstress with a production house and scrounged up funding through small business loans and savings and credit cards. Now, nearly a year later, having dispensed quite a few "queer theory 101 lectures" to work associates who didn't quite understand their butch fashion vision, they will start selling Studded at events and small private gatherings in the tradition of Tupperware parties. They just opened their Web site, www. chocolatebabydesigns.com, and will turn their attention next to men's suits, shorts, swimwear and underwear.

"A lot of companies feel like gay women aren't going to spend money on fashion, or they don't think they have a fashion sense," Pew said, "which is an insult." So maybe there's a grain of truth in the stereotype, she said, but if women with a taste for men's attire could find clothes that fit right, fewer would find shopping and dressing so grievous. "Of course you're going to rush to dress if you don't like what you're wearing," Pew said. "You're not going to look in the mirror and primp and do all the extras if you're not completely satisfied."

Cole, who was wearing a blue button-down Studded shirt, said, "I look better in these clothes than I have ever looked. "I hope this launches a love affair with fashion for butches and studs," she said. "Having a damn good pair of pants on can go a long way if you're having a bad day."

pics
 
Lookin butch without a dick.

No. Not my goal at all.

Interesting article, though.
 
perdita said:
My niche is empty. :(

Perdita

I'll let that one pass cuz there is so much I can say....anyhoo, great article. If I had the money I would have a tailored armani suit...I wear men's jeans and shirts, but I wouldn't say I'm butch because I do love to dress up for a formal occasion or dinner and be very feminine. Then I hike up my dress and climb in the truck.
 
ABSTRUSE said:
Then I hike up my dress and climb in the truck.
Now that turns me on, get a pic.

I'm not butch but I do like to dress like a man sometimes (only I obsess about what size salami to use). P.
 
perdita said:
Now that turns me on, get a pic.

I'm not butch but I do like to dress like a man sometimes (only I obsess about what size salami to use). P.

I did that at a Christmas party one time. It snowed and I had on a fabulous long dress (sort of a Patsy stone thing, long jacket, etc) and wore my men's Wolverine Construction boots in and then changed into my heels. Like I give a shit.

I go for the pleated fronts trousers and then I don't have to worry about the salami.
 
Back
Top