Empire Records

Last weekend I rewatched a film I hadn't seen for many years. It wasn't that successful on release but has since become something of a cult classic and had a minor effect on me when I was young. 

Empire Records (1995) is very much in the slacker comedy vein that emerged in the early 1990s and one which included one of my favourite movies, Clerks. It also has much of a Breakfast Club vibe. The plot, as much as there is one, revolves around the lives and loves of the staff of the titular record store over one 24-hour period as they try to save their workplace from being turned into a chain store, Music Town, and prepare for the visit of singer Rex Manning. In fact, if you've ever heard the phrase 'Rex Manning Day' or seen it pop up on Twitter then this is what that's referring to. The day is celebrated by fans every year on 8th April. The cast has quite a few future well-known names among it including Renee Zellweger who, although these days is more well known playing the hopeless romantic in films like the Bridget Jones series, (see Note below) here she's playing 'turbo slut' Gina. With it's 'damn the man' teen spirit it's one of those that works well when you're young but is a painful reminder of your lost youth when you reach your 40s. 

However it was Liv Tyler, playing student Cory Mason, who made the biggest impression on me though. I was a teenager at the time and the only reason I needed to rent the video of this was the front cover showing Liv front and centre in a blue cropped jumper, plaid mini skirt and boots (see below). Perhaps this and Clueless fuelled my love of plaid skirts and there certainly seemed to be a lot of it about in the 90s. 

Theatrical poster of Empire Records (1995)
Credit: IMDB

Fast forward a few decades and, watching it again, I started wondering if I could cosplay it. That outfit has become iconic now and, doing a quick Google search, there are quite a few people choosing to cosplay it. It's certainly no weirder than my recent thoughts about doing more waitress cosplays (Alongside Clara Oswald I've thought of doing the outfits from Twin Peaks and Two Broke Girls. I may have a problem).

This brought to mind one of my long held dilemmas about being a straight crossdresser - namely the issue of whether I fancy someone or just want to wear the outfit and in this case I've had a little change. There's no doubt that I found (and still do) Liv Tyler attractive but this time around I was thinking about whether I could cosplay the outfit and how much fun it might be to wear it. Were these my thoughts all along and I simply wasn't expressing them and choosing to subconsciously hide behind sexuality? I don't think so but over the years as I have started to dress more I have allowed myself to think these thoughts, not that I was consciously repressing them in the first place but I just opened the door a bit wider and my world has grown so much that I can think about such things and they don't seem so alien or weird anymore.  

Overall I would recommend the film if you're looking for a fun teen movie with some peppy 90s nostalgia and a great soundtrack. 

Note: One of my first ways of dealing with my crossdressing fantasies was to draw myself in different situations. One of which was as Bridget Jones in a cardigan and mini skirt on the poster when Bridget Jones' Diary was released in 2001. 

The Week in Crossdressing #6

 I've written before about Harry Styles and his penchant for crossdressing which is always nice to see from someone in the public eye. This week he appeared on the cover of Vogue's December 2020 edition not only being the first solo male ever to do so in the magazine's long history but the first one to do so wearing a dress. 

There's a full interview with him about it on Vogue's website here: 

https://www.vogue.com/article/harry-styles-cover-december-2020

One choice quote I would definitely pick out from the article is: "I find myself looking at women’s clothes, thinking they’re amazing" which I'm sure is a sentiment many of us (certainly me, hopefully you reading this) will agree with. 

Harry Styles on the cover of Vogue
Photographer: Tyler Mitchell
Credit: Vogue.com

Of course this has sparked debate which is mainly about masculinity and whether it undermines it (depending on whether you think that is for good or bad), whether he looks sexy and whether it makes any difference that a cis het white male is doing it as opposed someone from a different background. There are also articles recreating the shoot and others in which 'brave men' (actual wording) walk down the street wearing dresses. 

I guess this is really a cross section of where male crossdressing is in 2020. On the one hand we have more people like Styles, especially those in the public eye, embracing gender fluidity and yet it's still seen as something a bit weird for men to do and I suppose some will always hold that opinion unless things change a lot and with fashion that's always possible. Personally I'm thrilled that this has happened and hope more men will embrace it and see it as not so much of an odd thing to do after all. 

Laundry Day

I was working on another review which I had hoped to put up this week but work has been a bit crazy and I actually had to rewatch the programme I was meant to be reviewing since I originally saw it a few months back and needed a refresh. 

Instead I thought I would put up another caption and this week I have coincidentally been going through a lot of my old captions in particular those featuring Ember Montoya, my witchy character. This was mainly because I have another one in mind to do featuring her and this time in the guise of a matchmaker. I've given Ember a number of jobs over the years and in fact the caption below was part of a Witch for Hire caption offer in which participants could hire Ember to do a job for them...or perhaps they would be the job themselves. I particularly love the last line in this one. 

This was originally created for SP2000 on Rachel's Haven. 

Laundry Day (2015)

 

My Week #10

 As we in the UK enter lockdown for the second time I was able to get one last clothes shop in and bought a new dress from a charity shop partly because I decided I need some more colours in my wardrobe other than black and blue. Ok, so it's still blue but a lighter blue and with some red flowers all over it. Probably a bit too late for such a summery dress but I wore it last weekend and it was rather nice. 

One slightly odd thing I've been thinking this week is about taking a course in fashion. I did do fashion briefly as part of a BTEC course in art I did back in college over 20 years ago and I approached it rather gingerly and I do wonder whether I was repressing something back then. Maybe if I had taken more of an interest it may have helped me but I think I was just too young at the time. The main part I did though was to write a brief history of fashion and I really enjoyed researching it and looking into it all. I'm only thinking about doing a brief online course though, perhaps leaning more towards a history of fashion rather than the design part. Designing would be an interesting thing though but I doubt I would be that good at it or even know what I'm trying to do. Maybe it's just this little fantasy I have of wanting to be a fashionista type girl or to have that kind of persona. Anyway, that's just something that's cropped up this week. 

To round off, it's been quite hard to escape the ongoing US election this week and while I haven't really got any US election themed captions, I did do a UK one back in 2015 and it's always been one of my favourites perhaps because it involves a 'he'll become what he hates' scenario. 

This was created for the April 2015 caption contest on Rachel's Haven with the theme of The Backfire. 

Tory Girl (2015)