Essentiel, a renowned fashion-house from my neck of the woods (Antwerp, Belgium that is) apparently also has a range of nail polishes and these are it’s latest additions.
I’m especially liking the vintage pink here but bar the purple one I’d pretty much buy each of them. Too bad then that today’s currency is money : s.
So it’s been announced a while ago that American ‘fashionista on a budget’-chain Forever 21 will open their first store in Belgium with more soon to follow. Well, as you can imagine this left a whole lot of Belgian fashion-addicts, including myself, in a bit of an excitement frenzy. Their hype machine already has me in it’s vice-like grip. Sneaky bastards! You see, many Belgian fashion bloggers were invited to an announcement event they hosted and the resulting blog-posts have got me all buzzed with excitement. And secretly have me kinda wishing I could’ve been there of course : (. From what I’ve seen so far the brand looks to be right up my alley so I can’t wait to browse around in the Antwerp branch soon. Sadly, the only one we have right now is in Brussels but they’re already building one in Antwerp so yay! It’s gonna be so friggin’ awesome : D.
Hi huns,
I went out to ‘that’ club again recently. This time though it was a considerably more positive experience than last time even if I wasn’t really in my element that particular night. The reason I’m bringing this up is because of a strange encounter I had there which I feel puts the events of last time in perspective (dismissive looks from gay people for those who don’t know or remember).
That particular weekend Antwerp was hosting a gay pride weekend which meant there were a lot of foreign people in Antwerp and therefore also in the club. Most of which were Dutch which definitely made D-Club a much more pleasant place to be as Dutch gays are a lot more openminded and generally more fun people than the Belgian gays who tend to have their heads firmly stuck up their asses.
The main room had not yet opened so I stood at the bar twirling my thumbs a bit waiting for it to open. Two guys went to the bar near where I was standing to order drinks and one of them asked me why I was looking so glum. Well, apparently I was looking a bit glum, I didn’t even realize it myself really. I wasn’t feeling glum though, I was just nervous as fuck which is what I told him. He replied that I didn’t need to be as I looked great and that I should just drink more and that everything would get better from there on. Huh, way ahead of you buddy, I was working on it.
Later on in the main room he comes up to me again because he noticed I was not dancing and not dancing in a gay-club is obviously so not done. He asked if I was even having fun and sure I was, I was just still not drunk enough. So then it came, he asked me what exactly I wanted to achieve by being there. Eh? Excuse me? I was a bit lost for words because I felt it was just such a silly question. Before I had a chance to assemble anything resembling a decent sentence he interrupted me with “Are you looking to blow someone tonight?”. Erm, no! I told him that I have a girlfriend and that I was just there because I wanted to have some fun. And then I swear I could see a blue screen appear from behind his eyes. Fatal error, cannot compute, please input correct variables. He was trying his hardest to make sense of the proverbial bomb I just dropped on him. Looking at his puzzled expression it looked like he wasn’t that successful in his attempt to do so. So in a desperate attempt to try and make sense of it all he asked me ‘the’ question; “You’re straight?!”. Yeah I said, “Well, bisexual actually but not actively solliciting for a shagging”. This guy did not know where he had it coming from. He made another attempt to get me to set the mess I made in his head straight and asked me why I would dress up like this if I wasn’t looking to be picked up by a guy. Hellooo dude! It’s a gay club, I think there would be much more effective ways for picking up a guy in a gay-club? Like maybe just showing up in men’s clothing? He seemed like a sweetheart but he wasn’t exactly the brightest bulb in the box.
But anyway, this gave me a good idea of how people would generally view a transvestite in a nightclub. Of course you’re gonna get dismissive looks if people automatically assume you’re just a fetishist wanting to get fucked by a guy. Basically that makes you a slut in their eyes and that is frowned upon by some. So I guess this is something you can attribute either to a lack of education on their behalf or maybe my outfit was just too “provocative” to be taken seriously. But then c’mon, it’s a nightclub, I’m not gonna wear a friggin’ burkah. I was barely showing any skin ferchrissakes. I don’t think it’s fair though to be judged on that basis without them even bothering to talk to me and see what I’m really about. I mean, sometimes trannies want to have some fun as well. And by fun I mean just harmless drinking ‘n’ dancing fun. Not the ‘being picked up for a naughty adventure’-kind of fun. But apparently that seems kind of hard to fathom by most people …
Hear ye, hear ye! Felicity has witnessed daylight. Daylight I tells ya! Yeah, that’s right, yesterday I ventured outside once more but the difference this time being that I did so during daytime which is a first for me. And how did this new milestone come about? Well, I knew I had time to dress up that day but I wanted to go out to buy some new jeans as well. I wanted them pretty bad but at the same time I didn’t want my shopping trip to impose on my dressing time. So I just decided to combine the two making it the first time I went shopping ‘en femme’ as well. And what an awesome experience that was. Surprisingly enough I felt more comfortable shopping for my clothes than if I did so as a man even though I knew damn well that no-one was going to mistake me for a biological female. But it just felt better nonetheless. Gone was the awkwardness of shopping for women’s clothing. Now I was at ease and enjoying it, just like a woman probably would enjoy her trips out shopping. I felt so comfortable and free that I even openly strolled the high street of Antwerp afterwards. And that’s a street which ranks pretty fucking high on the highness scale concerning the highness of high streets y’know. In more comprehensible language, it’s a really crowded hotspot so big yay for me.
I even went for a cup of coffee as well before going back home. Which I didn’t really want to as I was having so much fun. Which is funny as what I was doing was in actuality a pretty darn pedestrian activity. Now it was friggin’ Disneyland. The sun was even shining, mid-winter no less. As if to tell me, Fe honey, this right here, this is your day. Why thank you greenhouse effect. But yeah, I had some work to do at home but I can look back now and say that this trip left me feeling very content.
I was doing rather okay in the funny looks department as well which didn’t really start to occur until the last half of my trip and they weren’t even that annoying really. I mean, I know what I am and I don’t have any issues with it. If anyone else does, tough shit for them : ). I’m not going to let this kind of petty minded behaviour ruin my day.
Furthermore I enjoyed some sweet deals at New Look as well who were doing some sort of winter collection clearance and a ‘buy two jeans, get the third for half price’ deal. Woooot!
So all in all it was an extremely positive experience. It felt like the ultimate validation of Felicity. My own “Hello world, this is me”-moment so to speak.
So here it is, my first shopping fave. This one is my latest discovery, it’s a store called ‘Women’s Secret’, not to be confused with Victoria’s Secret, but yeah, they also sell women’s lingerie. This ranges from sexy lingerie to cute underwear, nightwear, beachwear and even some regular clothing. Although they don’t carry that much of regular clothing. I did however buy a cute dress and top there though. Women’s Secret is a chain store with stores just about anywhere as I could tell from the side of the bag I got. As far as I know they got two stores in Antwerp. The one I went to is in a shopping centre called ‘Stadsfeestzaal’ and is the larger one of the two. Not ‘that’ much larger but large enough to make it more comfortable to shop at as a man so that you’re not always directly visible from outside the store. They also have the more interesting selection even though there’s some overlap. It’s all in-house brand and it’s not too expensive compared to big brands or other chains like Hunkemoller yet the quality seems comparable to me. I go there during working hours which makes for comfortable shopping. Not too busy then. What I also like there is the audience which goes from young adults and upwards. I cannot stress enough about how much I like this. You might know the feeling. Me, I just love to shop at stores like New Look and H&M. I love their clothes and accessories. Especially New Look. But it’s so annoying to shop there when you’re constantly trying to avoid 16 year old schoolgirls. You know, the gigling, loud types. They make me so nervous and trust me, when I shop for women’s clothing I’m nervous enough as it is. That’s what I love about Women’s Secret. I find it much more relaxing to shop there. This is greatly enhanced by the girls who work there. So there you are with a shitload of lingerie and a dress and she says totally unfazed “Is it a gift sir?”. She cannot be that naive right? Of course she’s not, they’re just that subtle, which really helps make you feel at ease and makes you want to come back. They’re really friendly girls with a professional attitude. So yeah, definetely a fave of mine. If you live near Antwerp or ever decide to go there you should check it out. Maybe you have one where you live. If so, I’d love to hear about your experience with that one.
Love,
Felicity.
One of the reasons I started doing this blog is to share with readers what stores I like to shop at. So this is where ‘shopping faves’ comes in. It’ll be a recurring section where I’ll talk about my shopping experiences of one store in particular. These will not be reviews, it’s a more personal view of me on that store. Why I like it, be it the clothing itself, the people who work there, layout (very important to me since I shop as a man) and such. A review about a store in Antwerp would not be that interesting to most of you anyway. So there, I hope it’ll be an interesting read and when the first one is online be sure to tell me what you think.
Love,
Felicity
Felicity's diary - diary of a crossdresser 