I find that if something is in fashion, I can wear more eye-catching, even sexier clothes. Yesterday, for example, I spent the day in tight bright red leggings under a black tunic top. The leggings were tucked into bright red boots. A wild look? Yeah! And a lot of fun to wear! And because it's in fashion, I didn't get any "funny" looks. Got a lot of stolen glances, though.
Fashion works!
Why does it work? Perhaps it's a sublimation? Sublimation is a concept from psychology. Basically sublimation means finding a way to make one's abnormalities more socially acceptable. Sublimation is not necessarily a bad thing. For example, it could be argued that joining a support group is a sublimation. Instead of staying home and feeling guilty (about crossdressing, for example), we can go to a support group and help other people feel that crossdressing is acceptable and appropriate. Knowing we're helping others helps us feel better about ourselves. And when our friends say nice things to us at the meeting, that helps too. And since crossdressing appropriately should be acceptable, this is a good thing.
Fashion could be seen as a sublimation of urges to dress sexy, slutty, colorfully, to attract attention, and so on. Fashion says "for this season, these looks that in the past might have been less than acceptable are now ok, especially if you wear them this certain way." How does fashion do this? By manipulating popular taste, for one thing. If Steven Cojocaru or Tommy Hilfiger or your home economics teacher says something is in fashion, they're giving you permission to wear it. But fashion has other tricks up its sleeve. For one thing, the difference between fashion and fetish is that there is never just one thing in fashion, and what's in fashion now doesn't stay in fashion forever. A crossdresser with a fetish for very short skirts might wear a very short skirt every time she dresses. But fashion says "variety": a crossdresser who's into fashion might wear a very short skirt Saturday night to the club, then wear her flared jeans and pink blouse to the mid-week support group, for example. In fact, she might love short skirts every bit as much as the girl who always wears them, but by varying what she wears, she avoids giving the impression that she has a thing about her clothes.
Most crossdressers have two goals: we want to wear the kind of clothes that we enjoy, and we want to be passable--at least passable enough to avoid dirty looks, catcalls, and so on. Following what's in fashion can help us to do both at the same time.
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