Trans Clothes Shopping Tips

1. Don't underestimate the power of thrift stores.
2. Try the boys section. I've definitely worn L or XL items from the boys.
3. When figuring out your jeans size for the first time, just try a TON on. The more you go through, the closer you get to your size.
4. For new shirts, Ross's is always worth a shot, and you can find them for $5-9.
5. Don't completely avoid the women's section. Many styles are androgynous, and sometimes it will look masculine, but fit our bodies.
6. Get multi-use clothes. If you find a nice shirt, that could be a dress shirt, wear it dressed down with jeans too. This saves on the amount of clothes you need to switch.
7. If you find something that fits you well, and you know you'll wear a lot, just get it. I'd prefer to pay $5 for a shirt that I wear once a week than $2 for a shirt that I wear once a month.
8. When you go to try stuff on in the dressing room, hold the clothes in front of you instead of at your side. (If you are on the border of passing it will hide your chest better and leave less ambiguity about what dressing room you're going in.)

 

Amazon and Ebay are my friends once I figured out my sizing...

See, I have the opposite problem, things I want (namely some Korean and Japanese and Chinese clothing and shoe styles) don't even come close to a woman's Large even...

 

Seriously I feel like the only transguy who has to wear XL and large sizes (my hips are that big).

But anyway...

1) Layers are your friend. If you're a big guy like me, having an open shirt over a t really helps hide your curves and boxes out your frame. I seriously wouldn't pass if I didn't layer my clothes

2) Don't be afraid to spurge on nice clothes. I don't buy clothes often. So when you're buying clothes, you want to think about how often you'll be wearing it. Don't go cheap unless you can't see yourself wearing it more than a couple times. I admit I've paid up to forty bucks for my shirts. It's worth it if you're someone like me who doesn't have a huge collection of clothes and is hard on them.

3) But if you don't have the budget (I don't), thrift stores are your best friend. If you take your time, you'll be able to find some pretty good stuff. I buy all my jeans from thrift stores (paid about 10 bucks per pair). I found a Guess leather jacket (which retails for about 200 bucks) for 20 bucks. But this probably won't be the case 24/7- seriously, take your time. Lots of cheap crap at a thrift store so hit multiple stores until you find the favorite.

 

I know the feeling. I was looking at some cycling shoes I really liked last year, the "mens" version was extremely ugly, the women's version of the same shoe actually had a relatively normal color scheme. But, the closest they even made the womens to my size was 5 sizes too small. (cycling shoes actually have ONE standard for sizing worldwide - european shoe sizes)

 

I like shopping the youth sections at the buckle. I fit a youth medium really well for Affliction. Boys clothes are fine if it isn't a childish design. I only just Japanese clothes if I'm looking to buy something expensive and brand name.

 

Shorty McShortstack here at a towering 5'1, 110 pounds. Clothes shopping for me may as well be a mission, because it's practically impossible to find anything that fits. I've also used this guide a lot in the past, and figure it'd be helpful for all the short guys out there.

Seconding what others have said, thrift stores are your best bet. All of the best clothes I own have come from them, and I've yet to spend over $20 on any item of clothing there. Most of the clothes I own, I likely would've paid twice for in a department store/retail. If I do decide to go look for clothes at a regular shop, I usually stick with the boys section, which an L/XL fits well, and sometimes men's smalls fit nicely, especially collared/plaid shirts with long sleeves which I can just roll up. 80% of my wardrobe consists of them, I'd say. I'll have to look into Asian stores, seeing as a lot of clothing by Asian manufacturers caters to a smaller body frame.

I also want to throw in some other advice. For your upper body, wear shirts that fit across the chest and shoulders. That usually means they'll be more boxy down the waist and might bulge out a bit over your hips, but I think a good fit on the chest and shoulders is the more important thing. If you're self conscious about the shirts looking weird across the hips, wearing a longer jacket or blazer helps. Honestly, having a good jacket/blazer makes all the difference.

Also: colours. Dark pants and cardigans help hide the shape of your body and create a triangle on your torso. A heavily structured jacket could help give some more shoulder definition. Light-colored shirts in blue, white, or stripes will project masculinity. As oft-repeated, bulking out the torso will help distract from your hips.

As for bottoms, I have a harder time with jeans, because I really like wearing straight leg/skinny men's jeans, but usually the legs are too long. I've had more luck buying them online than I have trying to find in-store. If I wear women's, my hips are too prominent and it just throws off a masculine body frame. But usually if I can get my shoulders/torso to stand out more in contrast to my hips, I pass as male.

 

Yesstyle.com is another option with a large selection of fashionable stuff. Lesloveboat.com carries binders and men's clothing specifically for trans* et al. people. Tomboy is an androgynous label. I like to dress reasonably professionally and have found excellent dark jeans and nicer hoodies from Abercrombie Kids. For shirts, I'm a walking advertisement for Express - they have an extra slim fit in xs!!! For more casual shirts, H&M carries a lot of great stuff at really nice prices (also carry xs but be warned that their jeans are a nightmare). If you have shorter arms (I have long tree-swinging arms ) Gap Kids and JCrew Kids are fantastic. If you have longer arms, JCrew also has amazing sweaters and things in xs and some slim fit. For dress pants, if you're less than a 28×30, you either have to find the occasional kid's pants (try the aforementioned) or women's. Gap makes some women's work-appropriate pants that actually button left-over-right! Banana Republic and JCrew do as well sometimes. For suits, the boy's department can work fine with some tailoring - all suits need tailoring to look right. I have a boy's size 16 Calvin Klein suit that I had tailored and it's awesome!! About $200 with alterations. JCrew again offers suits but in a more limited size range and at a steeper price. Joseph Abboud looks good but I haven't tried one. Nautica makes navy blazers that will make you look like a prep school teenager... If you have hips, go for straight or a slim bootcut to draw the eye down. If you have a large chest, asymmetrical patterns can confuse the eye of what to focus on. Baggy clothing draws attention to you and your body - avoid it unless for a specific fashion reason (I sometimes where a long white dress shirt with darker jeans and a velvet blazer - it makes my torso appear longer and is a bit dramatic ).

I am realllly into fashion and all design in general. Haha! My current battle is to find the "perfect" undershirt and underwear. -.- I shall not be defeated in this quest...

Best of luck!

 

I tend to wear darker pants in a slimmer style to try and downplay my hips and thighs, then wear a few well-fitting layers up top to add a little visual bulk. If art school taught me anything it's that dark colors, especially black, tend to visually shrink an area while light ones tend to broaden. While well-fitting clothes from the women's section would fit true to curves, I gauge a good fit on my shirts from the men's section by how they fit in the shoulders and chest, and the width of the sleeves. For long sleeves, I try and get as close as I can to a decent length, and wear them rolled up if they're too long until I can have them fixed (still on my to do list...). For short sleeves, I try and find ones that aren't too long or too loose, since they make my arms look even more noodley. Like Oddish pointed out, it's a lot of clever smoke and mirrors, especially if you're a small guy.

At 5'3" and 124lbs, a standard men's small doesn't usually fit right. I've had decent luck in pacsun and american eagle - pacsun's shirts seem to run slightly small compared to other places, and american eagle carries xs shirts. Both places have decent clearance deals every now and then and consistently carry smaller sizes. I recommend slimmer fit shirts when it comes to button front shirts. Classic cuts tend to be loose in the sleeves, which makes your arms look tiny, and slimmer fit shirts tend to be more fitted in the arms which is good when you don't have a lot of bulk there. They also fit better across the chest and in the shoulders 99% of the time, in my experience. Basically it looks less like you're wearing your dad's clothes.

I have no luck with shoes, and no tips for shoes. I wear converse with pretty much everything. They're about as ambiguous as footwear gets.

Be careful with graphics on tshirts. They can easily get distorted by the figure you're working to hide, especially if they're big. That doesn't mean avoid them all together. Wear them if you like them - just make sure you've done a superior bind job underneath.

I feel like anything else I might say would just be reiteration. :\

 

eBay seems to be useful on the MTF clothes front.
Being 5'7" and 135lbs, medium/size 10-12 seems to fit.
Shoes are a bit more difficult though, being size 8-9.

 

I'm not trans but I second the suggestion of going to the little boys' section, especially for skinny people (they make their stuff to fit, stringy, awkward 14-year-old boys, remember ). Children's clothes are also priced a lot lower. I have some great cargo shorts in children's size 16-18 or so.

For those who are bigger but still short, I know places like Old Navy and Land's End have "husky" styles, maybe that would work?

 

One thing that I love to do is to go through the 80-90 percent off Clearance racks at stores. Sometimes you can get some really cool stuff off of there. Also, sometimes the reason that those clothes are there is because they might fit cis people weird. So, you can always use that to your advantage.

Also, if you have stores around you like Gabriel brothers, then those are awesome too. It's a store where other stores send their clearance items that won't sell, or they will send misprints or improperly made clothing. You can find some really cool stuff there too.

 

Try being 6'1" and size 11 shoe (womens).

 

That's about what size I was (give or take a lot of pounds...) when I was presenting female. So I'd say that's pretty average for most women. I think at my thinnest, I was maybe a 12? Always been pretty broad shouldered.

 

I followed (until I found my pant size) the 21 rule, if you were a guy and had a 32 waist you should try for size 10/11 pants in the female section, and vice-versa

Payless - They stock up to size 12 female shoes in store ( I am a 10/11) and I believe a size 15 Men's

Sears/K-mart - Shop you way rewards, if you're re-inventing your wardrobe, this is a great program, all you need is an email(it's free). You earn 10 cents for every dollar spent(so say you spend $30, you get to take $3 off of an item next purchase), and get special reduced member pricing and surprise points. They will also occasionally stock up to size 11 women's shoe.

Sears/Kmart/Forever 21/Aeropostale/Jc-Penny - Probably more but these companies have Transgender discrimination rules in place, so shopping in store and even trying clothes on even if you're not presenting as your true gender will prevent any weird looks and questions from staff members

 

That's puny! I'm a size 12, and I'm not even trans---or as tall as you lol... I can virtually never get women's shoes in normal stores.

For shoes, try to locate specialty stores that carry only large sizes. There are a couple relatively close to where I live, they carry brands like Clarks, Hush Puppies, Converse, and a million others.

Payless is an option, too, but their stuff is made out of plastic and if your feet are sweaty (like mine), you'll die. And it's not top comfort, either. Wearing their flats is kinda like walking on thin cardboard...

 

(*hug*)

Amen sister!

 

Yeah, I've never had problems in corporate department stores. Even when my hair was long, no one gave me trouble for trying out men's changing rooms. They're pretty good at just letting you live and let live in that kind of joint.

I pretty much shop exclusively in men's now. Gotten a few weird looks, but that went away when I started to pass.

 

Well that would explain why they were so helpful when I was buying my suit.