2mo ago

Advice on building a wardrobe of femme clothing?

Hi y’all! Do you have any advice on how to start building a wardrobe of femme clothing?

I’m starting to feel braver and want to start wearing girl clothes out in public more. The problem is 1) I have next to no girl clothes, just the few affirming things I wear around the house, and 2) I am overwhelmed by the amount of options I have and don’t know where to start.

Historically, I’ve dressed more workwear (flannel, denim, leather) in the winter, and more normcore (solid color tees and chino shorts) in the summer.

I’m not sure how to translate those into feminine clothes, if I even want to. I really more so want to take the opportunity to find a more expressive style (I always disliked how few options men are given when it comes to fashion), but I still feel like I need a few kind of “core” outfits that I can easily mix and match, like a capsule wardrobe.

I also expect there to be an awkward phase as my body changes and I start to figure out my style, but I’d prefer to not make any glaring faux pas either.

Any advice is greatly appreciated 😊

20 comments

I am on the same journey! Let me share my tips.
Thrifting / second-hand clothes are a great starting point. It allows you to dip your toes into femme clothes shopping without blowing a hole in your budget.
Shop with a close friend. I personally have a cis female helping me out when I shop in person for femme clothes. Getting real-time feedback helps soooo much!
Be cautious about size options from online retailers. A Large shirt from company X may be different than a Large shirt from company Z. This is a known “feature” of femme clothing.
Dont worry too much about a specific style. Find clothes that resonate and make you happy and confident.
- Oh yes, that's a very good point. "Size" is a concept you should forget :3 I'm an M in one brand and 3L in another. (Particularly as a transfem my proportions are quite far off average)
  
  Yup! Growing up with two cis females, they would complain about sizing issues sooooo much. I forgot, and I ran into this personally when i bought a handful of femme shirts online, all xl. One was a med, one was Large, other was XL. Very frustrating.
- Seconding thrift stores. That's really where I've got my hands on most of my clothes. It's cheap, cheap enough that if you don't like it it's no big deal just return or donate it. And quite often you find really cool stuff. If you live in an area that is poverty stricken it might be tough at those shops, I go to a more well off part of town and thrift there. You'd be amazed at what well off women will donate. Good luck on your journey!
  
  I hear this a lot, but what qualifies as a "thrift" store in this case? Are we suggesting places like a Goodwill, or something else? I live in a pretty rural area, but I can get to a moderate city occasionally. My area is pretty much only Goodwill or WalMart/Target. What is everyone seeing in their minds when they hear "thrift store"?
  
  Thanks :) I love going to the Goodwills in the nicer parts of town, you can find some great stuff there! There are a few near me that are usually good bets
- Thanks for the tips! It sounds like a thrifting day is in store for me soon :)
  Are there any particular styles I should try to avoid? I guess I’m just worried about giving away that I don’t have a clue what I’m doing lol
  
  I have no clue what i am doing either, i go with the flow. Lately i habe been picking out tops that make me feel confident and accentuate my figure. I like to be colourful too, greens and oranges galore!
If you don't know what you like yet, or what your style is, try going on FB marketplace or Craigslist and look for a closet clean out. This is the season for yard sales too. Try to find someone listing things in roughly your size (they sometimes will say "lots of XL clothes!" ) and then you can pick up giant bags or whole bins of random clothes for not even 10 dollars.
If you score a haul or two like that and get a chance to play dress up and experiment, you can figure out what you like on your body. What kind of necklines do you feel are flattering, what silhouettes, what length skirts or sleeves etc. Once you have a better idea of what you actually like on you, you can move on to shopping at thrift stores. There, you can keep an eye out for pieces that fit the profile of clothing you decided you liked. Not all thrift stores let you try on clothes and you might not feel confident enough to throw it on over what you're wearing, so be prepared to buy, try, and maybe return.
Try to go for higher quality items made of natural materials. You should aim for as little polyester, nylon, acrylic or spandex as possible. Look for cotton, linen, and wool, rayon and viscose are ok too. Feel the clothes and see if they have weight to the fabric, and structure to them. Good quality clothing has construction and patterning that makes them fit a body better than just a sack or a rectangle. Look for clothes with linings and complexity.
Hopefully you will be able to build a starter wardrobe of some good core pieces that you love!
There have been many great replies already but I wanted to share my Thrift Store Journey in case it helps.
My first issue was simply getting up the courage to start the process of creating my new wardrobe. I had already donated a bunch of my old clothes to make room in my drawers, and took everything else out and organized them in a more thoughtful way. Now I have a drawer dedicated to my skirts and pants, and one for my shirts/blouses etc. Also made room in closets to hang dresses and such.
My first clothes shopping experience was with target, and I went with the idea that I was just looking for 1 thing to try so I could figure out sizing better. I ended up with a pair of high waisted stretch pants and then bought a second pair from them online. My experience at Target was OK, I even asked an associate about the size and checked on how the changing rooms worked and there wasn't any problems. But I was SUPER nervous the whole time.
A couple months later I finally worked up enough confidence to try the thrift store near me. I have now visited it a total of 5 times. I tried to go just after they opened and I spent about 3 hours each time. Here's what my (approximately) $300 got me so far:
15 shirts/blouses
9 skirts/skorts
9 tank tops for layering
5 casual pants
3 dresses
2 pajama bottoms
1 sleep shorts
The dresses were the most frustrating thing to buy. Sizing is TERRIBLE and I had to try on probably 30 or 40 dresses (no lie) to find the 3 I eventually got. Some of the dresses I went really large on size and they still didn't fit. I think I got super lucky to even find 3. They were also more expensive than the other clothes. Generally everything else was $4 to $6 but the dresses were more like $7 and up. The most expensive was around $12.
Each time was very hit or miss. First time I got super lucky and pulled in several shirts, blouses and skirts.
The second time I had way too many things that I really really wanted but just barely didn't fit. However, I did pick up a skirt I'd found the first time, but at the time couldn't figure out how to get into it lol. It has a tiny hook and a little zipper that is hidden. Really cute but I was afraid of breaking it the first time because I couldn't see the zipper so I put it back. One of the other 5 visits was also very good. By the 5th time I was much more relaxed and focused. They had 5 changing rooms, so sometimes I had to wait a little while.
The other thing that really helped is I started keeping notes on what I liked and what I wanted to try and get the next time I went. Also, when I got home each time I laid out everything on my bed and cut the tags off and took pictures so that I could remember what I got. At this point I have a solid core going, but I still need some warmer clothes to wear in the fall/winter so I'm sure I'll be going back there eventually.
This may have already been mentioned but one thing that I started being very careful about is looking at every seam and checking for threads coming loose. One of the neat shirts I got ended up having a small tear at the collar so I don't really want to wear it until I can learn how to sew that together. Once I made that mistake I was alot more careful when shopping.
The other thing I noticed is that spending that many hours peeling through the racks with all the different metal hangers was absolute hell on my hands and especially my nails. Almost every time I went I had to trim my nails because I'd nicked them so much.
I started keeping a mental list of the "cheap" clothing like Shein etc and tried to stay away from that stuff. I found some website that had like 40 different cheap brands listed, what they called "fast fashion" and made every effort to shy away from those wherever possible.
Overall it was a great experience and I have discovered that I really enjoy shopping now. I also really love trying to figure out what I'm going to wear in the morning. Sometimes I have a vision the night before and set my clothes out for the next day. I tried to get some things that have some similar colors and some things that were just mono color and that has been really smart. Several items go with several other items so I try to wear what suits my mood and the weather.
That's all I can think of for now. I wish you the best of luck and hopefully you have a decent thrift store near you!
Ive had incredible luck thrifting. I usually go once every 2 weeks and only take items I really like. Early on I stuck to sports bras cause theyre more forgiving as you grow, so they last a bit longer.
A line silhouettes tend to look good when your hips aren't super wide, as your fat moves around tho your hips will fill out. More than anything have fun with it. Try new clothes outside your comfort zone. Get lots of accessories too!! Putting together an outfit with accessories is so much fun. Gives you the opportunity to further express yourself 😊
Buy a little at a time, and nothing remotely expensive, especially if you plan on losing weight. Amazon is your friend here.
Look on pinterest and in real life for women wearing things you like. Then copy them! It's that easy, but it takes a while to find your own style. You'll have plenty of time as your body changes to explore.
Have fun!
- HARD disagree about Amazon. It's nobody's friend but most especially it's terrible for buying clothing. For one, just about everything the search algorithm will show you is mass produced at the most cut throat profit margin imaginable, which means even if you ignore the moral complexities of supporting businesses with unethical labor practices, heavy metal contamination, and dangerous chemical dyes, you're almost definitely getting crappy quality clothes that will not fit well and will not last. Not only that but the pictures are, with very few exceptions, extremely misleading or of different products entirely. The products they list seem like bargains because of their marketing but you get exactly what you pay for or even worse, and you end up spending way too much money on something that will end up in the trash within a year or look terrible on you or both.
  There are even more reasons not to buy clothing on Amazon, including that most returns you make for size or color go straight to a landfill, but I have only so many minutes in my day to rant about fast fashion.
  
  Yeah, I have never had good luck with Amazon clothing, the once or twice I’ve tried, for exactly that reason - terrible quality, and terrible sizing. The breadth of options seems appealing, but any time I go on Amazon any more it just feels like wading through sponsored slop to try to find something worthwhile, clothing or otherwise
- Thanks! Yeah, I’m definitely going to need to work slowly, since I am losing weight (10 down, 90 to go!). Buying a whole new wardrobe as I gained weight was a pain.
  Are there any particular items that might go better with a larger body type, to help me look slimmer or make my silhouette look more feminine?
  
  Some things I found effective:
  Hiding my gut was a priority, because that's a very masculine feature (not to say that women don't have fat there, but it tends not to be only there). Shape-adjusting underwear like girdles can help here but really it's just a case of shedding the weight.
  Breaking up the straight-up-and-down side profile is huge. A-line skirts and dresses if you're brave, or tops that cinch in at the waist. Try to make it look like you have hips.
  Layering! Women's fabrics are usually thinner, so try to wear a few things rather than just a T-shirt. Also combining tight and loose things works well.
  High-waisted bottoms!
  And unless you're hugely muscular, don't worry too much about showing off your shoulders.
I'm taking this same journey right now as well. I was in a similar situation as you (mostly plain shirts and hiking pants, think "Eddie Bauer"). I also really want to branch out to more interesting styles. The one thing I've learned from my partner is that layering is pretty much essential unless it's a scorching hot day. You can also seriously consider the same sources for your current clothing (Eddie Bauer's Women's section is not half bad for comfortable things that fit well, if a bit boring). You should consider that bottoms are possibly going to be tighter in some areas and looser in others unless or until hormones or surgery happen. I have a wide and sturdy ribcage, so tops all feel like they're too tight, especially at the armpits. Sizing up is an option, but so are looser cuts and stretchy materials. I find that I like a tighter base top and something loose to go over it like a hoodie, wrap, or shrug.
Experimentation is the only way to really learn anything. You can always try to abuse the Amazon "try 5 things out" nonsense, or find a shop that's trans-affirming or go to the next city over if you're shy and just try on everything until you find what you like. I have known people, especially my mother, to spend an entire day trying on clothing and buy one or two items. Or a dozen! I actually find the shopping and discovery part of this to be fun and a little relaxing. Think of it less as a chore or a scary task and more like a way to explore yourself and your identity, then make a fun day out of it!
Be aware of the future, clothes last a long time but certainly not forever. Most of the clothes I bought 3 years ago are now falling apart. My 1.5 year old hoodie is looking worn out and could be replaced.

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