Colour, Style & Image. A Work In Progress.

You read something and it sets off a train of thought and sometimes if you think hard enough it leads to a just a little bit more understanding of your own outlook.

In this case the thoughts are about colour and how melody interacts with colour.  The trigger for these thoughts was a wonderful post Racy Red by the lovely @PosyChurchgate exploring the various usages of the colour red in feminine displays of sexuality and how it can advertise sensuality and availability.

It set me thinking about melody’s use of colour, what works and what doesn’t.  Or do I think some colours work or not because of hidden meanings associated with some colours ?

In male mode colour is easy, as is style.  Universally it’s dark trousers and a shirt.  The shirts may vary in colour from white to various light colours and patterns in blue or pink.  About the only concession to colour clash is that I don’t have dark shirts.  Long gone are the days of ties, those did provide the opportunity to be quirky and individual.

But this post is about melody’s ongoing bafflement with female styling.  The first thing that struck me was ‘OMG, I don’t wear red’.  With follow up thoughts of why ?  Then I started thinking about what colours I do choose to wear and how appropriate or not they might be as styles for melody.

OK, just your normal female angst, then 😉

Why don’t I wear red ?  Once in a while I might use a bright garish red nail polish, but it’s rare and the only people who might see it are not going to read anything more in to it than seeing melody being a bit impish.  Yes, I may wear red clothes of darker hue such as burgundy and indeed I have a rather luscious cardigan in a quite vibrant deep burgundy which I actually wear in male mode as a means of having melody visible, even if only to me.  Beyond that I don’t wear anything red, not even shoes.

I’ll come on to why in a moment, but first there’s the thing that melody did used to wear red.

There’s a big black line some two years ago that separates the melody of the past with who she is now.  I’ve written about it elsewhere, so won’t waste space here.  Before that line melody was a female caricature, a fun thing to be at the time with lots of play potential.  Red, as Posy writes is associated with female sexual availability.  The ‘sissy’ scene plays up to this in spades and hot red becomes very prominent.  Stashed away I have several pairs of gorgeous bright red heels, even a pair of red thigh high boots.  They’re likely to stay stashed away as I’m not a purger.  To demonstrate, here’s something I found from 10 years ago that whilst not being over the top does show the use of red as a caricature in an attempt to be cute. [note: today I’m not proud of this, but I won’t be shamed by it nor deny it.]

This side of that black line is what you might call the modern melody.  A transformation that was an unexpected side effect of the early hypnosis and given a boost a year ago by weight loss, again an unexpected side effect of hypnosis.

I’ve written elsewhere about this big clear out of old labels and a realignment of understanding of who and what melody is.  To cut to the quick, melody is not a ‘sissy’, she’s genuinely transgendered.  She is asexual and now has a body shape that approximates being female.  That’s still a work in progress so equate it with being able to wear off the peg female clothes.

And that’s the answer to why melody no longer wears red.  Red is associated with a lot of the things she’s definitively learned that she’s not.  She doesn’t have to pretend to adhere to the insidious labels that say a ‘sissy’ is supposed to be desperately sexually available, especially to men.  She never bought in to that as a statement of sexuality, but accepted the outlandish style of dressing because at the size she was no one would ever do a double take as to wondering whether they saw a female or male.

That all changed when melody could really experiment with clothes and styles.  In my initial train of thought from Posy’s article I suggested that melody chose more subdued colours.  That’s not true.  The image itself might be considered subdued in relation to what it used to be but that’s because it’s trying to be ‘fit-in’ female – eventually someone you wouldn’t second glance at to question gender image.  The colours used within that image can sometimes be bright and breezy.  Yellows, greens, blues, whites, purple and very definitely pinks.  There seems to have been an unconscious decision to avoid all black, except for the occasional LBD.  Perhaps it’s because I see so many females using black as a de facto uniform, the equivalent of the easy choices of my clothing style in male mode.

What melody’s true colours and styles are, remains to be seen as it’s a work in progress and one I’m enjoying exploring (I think coloured tights/stockings are next on the list).  In general terms it’s kind of classic favourite maiden aunt who has a secret glint in her eye.  These images are taken this year and the contrast to the ones above is readily apparent.

Colour coordination is still a bit of a mystery and fun to explore.  And the overall image and how to project in different ways is certainly not understood.  Females tend to learn these basics playing with makeup at their mother’s dressing table and learn how to make subtle changes.

It’s in this area that melody really needs to learn what colours and styles make the most of her image.  Red pouty lips are unlikely to be part of that image.  Neither will short red mini skirts or red “fuck me” heels (ok, many heels I do have might be considered by some as “fuck me” shoes but they’re not red, right 😋)

So, sometime soon melody will be considering professional styling and makeover help to really see what’s possible.  The results could be very surprising and colourful – just not red, ok.