The Vampire's Lair

Virtual Violet and Melrose Chic


Last year at around this time I enlisted a number of gay men to help teach me about being fierce and fabulous. I didn't learn a damn thing from any of them, because, truth be told, although these people were certainly outrageous in their tastes and attitudes, the single most important attribute all of them possessed was not being fierce and fabulous themselves, but having the internal belief that they were fierce and fabulous. Being fierce and fabulous is a state of mind, I concluded, and that's the attitude I took with me to win my three-foot high Most Beautiful Female Impersonator trophy and equally large bouquet and prizes at the Henri David Halloween Ball.

If I had worn a black evening gown, would I have looked fierce? Maybe fabulous? No way! There were already too many contestants wearing black evening gowns. To win a female impersonator beauty pageant, you have to set yourself apart from the rest of the contestants. Being Asian helped, but it wasn't going to clinch the title. There were plenty of beautiful Asian female impersonators. The thing that would separate me from the rest of the pack, beyond any shadows of doubt, would be the color of my evening gown.

I chose red because I look great in red. In my male self, I would never wear red. It's too flashy for my conservative street kid tastes (you had to be conservative where I grew up). Red was the one evening gown color that stood out among all of the rest of the evening gown colors. Red was a dramatic color, an extreme color, and a radical color. Few people could wear a radical color well. That night, God smiled upon me and said, "Kalina can wear red" and I did and I won!

Okay, listen up kids, because what you're going to see this fall is a radical change in makeup colors, so you'll need a bit of practice to get the look down pat because these colors are really dramatic and if you don't do it right, you'll look more campy than realistic.

Anyone remember Chanel's Vamp - that really dark purple - from last summer? Well, it's purple time once again as Revlon introduces their own version of purple called - with great affection by us computer geeks - "Virtual Violet" (check out http://www.revlon.com for their new fall lineup). Anyone who reads the glamour magazines will know that this is direct idea theft from L'Oreal and their "Cybershine '96" concept introduced this past spring (listen to Revlon's clichés: shine of the times, mega-shimmer, techno fabrics, face of the future, ad nauseum... they're very similar to L'Oreal's promotional lingo).

L'Oreal decided to wage their own war by sticking to browns and bronzes this fall while Maybelline tries to entice us with a ravishing deep red called "Rogue Vogue." The conclusion I've come up with is it doesn't matter what color you wear in the fall so long as it is dark, dramatic, and matches your attitude, mood, and skin tone.

Maybe it's time to try the purples. Everyone who has an autumn face, masters or mistresses of the earth tones, will appreciate a change in their appearance. Unfortunately, these colors that Revlon has introduced are absolutely shocking: bright purples that would make even the most flamboyant drag queen run in the opposite direction.

That's why I think they're so great.

You truly have to be fierce and fabulous to wear these colors and if you can wear them before anyone else in your neighborhood, honey, you are going to be a freaking pioneer! Let's analyze the ultimate Virtual Violet look:

You have to pick shades of violet that look best on you. Some of you may prefer the lighter shades, such as Virtual Violet, Pink Foil, or Violet Light, for a softer look. Only the truly adventurous will go all out and buy Iced Amethyst, Blackberry, Suitably Ruby, or Violet X-treme. These are all part of the Revlon Super Lustrous Lipstick series, a moisturizing shimmery lipstick. Being the adventurous type, I bought the latter two colors. Mary wears the Ruby. I wear the X-treme.

Since I chose a color that Revlon would place in the "shocking" category, I had to find complementary plum and wine colors. I chose the Naturally Glamorous Blush-On in Pure Plum, Overtime Shadows in Vineyards (it's been three weeks now and no drugstore in Center City or Montgomery County stocks the elusive Violet Light eyeshadow, although most carry Violet X-treme eyeshadow), and a Revlon liplining pencil in Blackberry.

For mascara, I've used Revlon Lashfull for years, although I find Maybelline Great Lash and Cover Girl Longest Lengths to be very good products, too. I like dark brown and soft black mascara. Revlon makes a refillable eyebrow pencil, but their ColorStay self-sharpening eyelining pencil in black brown does the job equally well for me and can, of course, be used as a regular eyelining pencil, too.

The real icing to the whole Virtual Violet look is Revlon's Glossing lipstick, but don't do what Revlon suggests in wearing the Glossing on top of your lipstick. The real secret to the ultimate look is to wear the Glossing first and then wear your lip color on top of the Glossing! If you wear the Glossing as Revlon suggests (i.e. "blot your lipstick and then add extra shine with Glossing"), you will simply wipe off what's left of your lipstick onto the Glossing. If you wear the Glossing as I suggest, your shaded lipstick will intermingle with the lip gloss better and give you a really powerful shimmery effect. Even the "shocking" colors will look a little more subdued. The result: more people can wear the shocking colors and be en vogue.

It might be a little unfair to suggest that the shocking colors be limited to those who prefer a shocking look. Darker skin types can especially benefit from the shocking colors. The very warm skin tones of African and West Indian women look best with deeper colors, so Blackberry and Violet X-treme may not look so extreme on these skin types. On fair skin, such shades look almost black-colored under certain lighting conditions. Fair skin types would look a lot better with sheer violets, which are still bright because of their iridescence, but sit better on this type of face.

Okay, on to my glamour photo of the month. I'll include two.

Check out the sexy grey-colored baby tee with the obvious cliché on it: GIRL. And the voluptuous silicone enhancements I have underneath all packed into a rosewood-colored Bali Smooth Compliments Contour Underwire # 8679 satin bra. I have searched far and wide to find the perfect bra for my Nearly Me Full Oval breast forms and this is it! It is a full-coverage bra and will hold your nonattachable breast forms in place very nicely.

I'm also wearing a black lace skort (a skirt with biker shorts underneath), homemade hip pads, off-black silk pantyhose, and my black patent Chinese Laundry platforms. I went out dancing later that night and was carrying a matching black patent handbag a la Spiegal from their great six-dollar catalog offer (the bag they offered before the Tweety Bird handbag offer)!

My toenails were painted in Violet X-treme. My nails were sculptured and painted in Essie Cosmetics Ballet Slippers, a pale tannish white shade. Jewelry was nonexistent, save for my Anne Klein II watch with a black-colored bezel. Perfume was the requisite Gaultier, my favorite sweet-smelling vanilla scent, sprayed on my thighs and calves so that the scent would rise. Bronzing powder was applied to my arms to give a little more warmth to my appearance.

I asked Mary to give me a really big poofy hairstyle, like that of a South Philly chick, so we started with my expresso-colored (black brown) René of Paris "Felicia" interweave-style wig. Mary hot curled all of the hair around my forehead area, I attached the wig onto my own hair, and she weaved the strands of my hair with those of the wig's synthetic hair. A bit of teasing and hairspray raised the height of my hair about an inch higher than usual when I wear this wig.

My dance club adventure that night at Woody's consisted of plenty of the usual drag queen greetings, lustful looks, and a tall skinny Black guy who asked me to do that new, very silly dance, the "Maekawena," with him (the first half of which looks like part of a fifth-grade school dance my class had to do for the Village People's "YMCA" song back in 1979). I later bumped into and got pecks on the cheek by that hunky Latino, Luis, I met last month and even ran into that evil crotch-grabber, Jack, again who bought me a drink and walked away after I ignored him... hee hee... well, he deserved it, don't ya' think?!

The next night I abandoned the hip pads and took on a more Twiggy-like appearance. I wore my short ginger brown-colored shag-style wig called "Jane" (also by René of Paris) with a black mock turtleneck, black hot pants, off-black silk stockings, and Nine West suede shoes. Without my hip pads, I looked like a stick and my head looked big for my body, but, honey, I could still move my hips and butt like nobody's business on the dance floor!

I wore all of the same eye and cheek colors as the night before, but with L'Oreal's Plum Brulee lipstick. This is a very rosy/fuschia type of lip color. This look goes out to Leza whom I've been having wonderful conversations with via e-mail. She's got the Melrose look down pat and has inspired me to develop my own version of it that night. You go, girl! Look for her column, called "Melrose Chic," in the next issue of TransVamp Magazine coming to you this October. The last of the plugs goes out to JoAnn Roberts and Creative Design Services. We've bought ad space from each other, so you'll be seeing my ads in Ladylike Magazine and her ads in TransVamp. Both of these magazines are of the highest quality in their field (okay, okay, so Ladylike is better!), so please patronize both of us with your business.

The Top Secret Evening Gown

Those of you who've already seen pictures of me in my red evening gown from last year know that it will take an ultra-fabulous gown to outdo that one. Well, girlies, it looks like I found myself a new evening gown. It doesn't have the exquisiteness of my red gown (nothing ever will), but I will tell you now that my new gown will not disappoint! I will not reveal its colors, since it's meant to be a surprise that won't be revealed until Halloween (or the second week of November for TGForum readers), but let me say that if last year's fall color was red and this year's fall color is... well, 'nuff said, you get the picture.

I could have chosen from any number of single-colored gowns on the display rack. Instead, a little patience allowed me to find something a little less one-dimensional and a lot more dramatic. I'm working on all of the mental and physical details to show off the gown in the best possible light, which was exactly how I thought about my red gown last year. Hmmm... black satin shoes or... could it be there are three colors to this thing? Heh heh.

Here are some hints for those of you who are in the process of selecting and buying your first evening gown:

Buy a floor-length evening gown. Don't buy a skirt-length sequined party dress and try to convince yourself that it's a formal evening gown. Even worse, don't try to convince yourself that you have an awesome pair of legs and want to show them off in your skirt-length dress. C'mon, we're crossdressers... we all have awesome legs! If you have trouble finding an evening gown of the right length, keep searching or contact the manufacturer of the gown you are interested in to see if the gown comes in your size and length.

Don't wear a sleeveless gown in the fall or winter seasons. Sleeveless gowns are for spring and summer seasons. Go for a long-sleeved gown or wear long opera gloves with a short-sleeved gown. The former is preferred to the latter. If you are not wearing gloves, be sure to have your nails professionally done, crafted to a medium length, and painted in a variation of a French manicure.

Select a gown that is dramatically different. If you have one type of sequin on your gown - the familiar metallic disc - make sure that the gown has more than one color and is artfully done. If your gown has both sequins and different types of beads, you will definitely set yourself apart from the rest of your competitors. My red evening gown had four different types of beads. Every gown I saw among my competitors had two or at most three different types of beads. One of the finalists wore a gown with only metallic disc sequins, but they were lime green and she had multi-colored feathers popping out all over the place. It was different enough to set her apart from the rest of the competitors.

Make sure the gown fits your chest and waist perfectly. The hips can be filled out with foam hip padding. Altering an evening gown can be quite expensive, so it is better to get the fit right before any alterations need to be done. In high heels, the gown should fall at most two inches off the ground. If you find an evening gown that fits you perfectly and is the right length, buy the thing immediately! It is your destiny to wear it and show it off.

The higher your heels, the better so long as they do not exceed four inches on a sizes up to women's 10 and five inches on sizes greater than women's 10. If you wear flats or short heels with your evening gown, you will look like a prom reject. If you do wear high heels, make sure you've had enough practice walking in them on all types of surfaces. Make sure your heels fit your feet perfectly. They should be snug and never loose. I am in between a size 8-1/2 and 9 women's, but I chose 8-1/2 for the contest because I knew they wouldn't fall off of my feet. I practiced for about a year in four-inch heels walking up and down tall flights of stairs without holding onto the handrails to develop stamina and walking across gravel while carrying a stack of telephone books to develop poise.

Don't wear an off-the-shoulder evening gown if you have the arms and shoulders of a football player or a bodybuilder. You will look like Wesley Snipes in "To Wong Foo" if you do.

Don't wear an evening gown that shows off cleavage unless you know how to tape your chest together to create cleavage. If you have breast implants, hurray for you.

Don't wear an evening gown that shows off your back if you have a hairy back or one that shows off your bra straps if you must wear a bra to hold your breast forms in place.

Details...

By the way, I hear that Woody's is expanding in size soon. I don't know how or why, since this Philadelphia gay institution is fine just the way it is.

A very sad event happened recently. One of Philadelphia's legendary drag promoters, Joey Venuti, passed away recently due to cancer, so I don't know about the status of his Stars Too club. I did an exclusive interview with Joey last year that appeared in JoAnn Roberts' e-zine, Chatsubo. This is a deadly ramification for the drag scene in Philly because Joey was the guy who brought the female impersonation pageants to Philly every year. The other promoters just don't have the energy and enthusiasm that Joey had.

My favorite drink is now a toss up between an Alabama Slammer and a simple thing involving Chamboord (raspberry liqueur) and orange juice. I invented (or re-invented) this one seven years ago. I call it Fruit Juice, nothing negative intended.

Regarding vanilla scents, there is now a scent called Raw Vanilla for Men sold at your local cheapie drugstore. It smells a lot like the female vanilla scents out there. Why any man would want to smell like vanilla is beyond me. On a cute clubgal, it's a different story.

One person asked me about one of my very first sets of pictures, the ones with me modeling with my Winnie the Pooh bear. He asked me if I still had that bear. I replied yes, of course. In fact, last year I bought a bigger Pooh bear, about a foot long that plays the theme song when you press his blue honey pot (did that sound right?). I even have a Dogbert doll, but I'll never buy a Dilbert one because Dilbert's not as cute.

So, does anyone else think that Dennis Rodman is crossdressing just for publicity's sake? Do you understand all of these people, including teammate Steve Kerr, admitting that Dennis is cute in drag? Get real!

A reporter for Details Magazine interviewed me a long time ago for an article about clubkids. Maybe they'll print up my comments on the subject some month soon.

Like my style? I've written lots more in my full-length books! If you would like to find out more about my books and magazines, then click here for more info!


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