Ask Diana

Where's a young butch turn to for advice on clothes, hair, and style, particularly when you've got, as they say, champagne taste on a beer budget?
I asked my girlfriend to guest answer this one. She's a butch fashion maven and if you look at any of the Prof C videos on Velvetpark you can get an idea of her style.

But before I give you her answer let me just say, you need a femme to help you. If you don't have a girlfriend, get a friend to shop with you.

Honey, you can put together a serious look with a combo of thrifting and designer rack clearance sales, but you need a friend with an eye for a deal who really knows how to shop. Otherwise you'll just get overwhelmed.

Here's the Prof's advice:

"I know it may sound cheesy but an easy beginners guide to butch fashion is to flip through a men's fashion magazine. I'd recommend Details. Their fashion shoots present a narrow diversity, but at least it ranges from grungey/punkette to prep and you can find elements there of yourself to reinvent.

Copy the outfits with things you already own, and go out and buy an accessory that makes you feel hot and put together — a tie, watch, or something. Subtlety is key, you don't want to overdo it.

Also: watch out for your hat choices. Butches tend to take the short cut of hats as their be-all-end-all fashion expression. Recently, Diana and I were in Topshop in Soho, waiting in line (before giving up) to buy underwear. The giant pictures behind the registers were femmey guys totally ripping off butch dyke fashion from head to toe, from flannel to belt buckle.

So when you look through a Details, you aren't copping straight guy looks, you're most likely reclaiming looks we started ourselves!" 

Is it weird that last night I dreamed I was Jackie Chan and I was having phenomenal sex with the hottest woman EVER? BTW, I'm not a J.C. fan.
Last night I dreamed I was evacuating a menagerie of cute fluffy animals from the back of a white van in order to save them from a serial killer. Someone suggested I might be a plushie, but I'm really not a fan of cute fluffy animals.