Charlie

Late last year I was asked to interview a resident of a care home. I was told that he was over ninety but still very lucid. It was in the build-up to Christmas and I couldn’t see the point for a fashion magazine, but his daughters were insistent that he had a story to tell our readers. I had my misgivings, but went along anyway with only my phone to record the interview.

Charlie walked with a frame and guided me back to his room with the help of his daughter Claire. Once seated, he began his tale.

“Once I would have worn a miniskirt like you.” he said without any reservation. WOW! I said to myself “I like your top”, he added. It matches your eyes.”

I pricked up my ears at that point. “Tell me more”.

“Many years ago I left university with an engineering degree and few goals in life. I drifted from one job to another aimlessly, until I was asked to help with a restoration project on an old MG sports car. The parts were not available and the restoration had stalled, like the car I suppose! I got interested in the project and with the purchase of a second hand lathe and some other equipment I seemed to find my niche making parts for vintage and veteran cars.”

“The business grew consistently once my name began to become known in the restoration fraternity and during these years I met Sally and we set up home and had two beautiful daughters.”

“When Julia and Claire were eight and six, Sally had a miscarriage and an investigation showed that she had advanced cervical cancer. After some months of painful and largely useless treatment she passed away in our local hospice.”

“For a couple of weeks after the funeral, my sister stayed with the three of us, but she couldn’t leave her own family any longer so we were left to our own devices.”

“Grief is an experience that finds its own way into your life, but I had to keep the business going for the sake of my two employees, if nothing else; and Julia and Claire needed me to give them a stable home with Mummy having been taken away from them.”

“I suppose that many men would have tried to remarry as soon as possible to give the girls a mother figure to do ‘girl-things’ with, but I had no interest in doing that. My business was successful but I would miss Sally being our representative at the various Trade Fairs we went to, to drum up custom. She had long legs, a lovely smile, a bosom that turned men’s heads. She was a real asset in a world of the seventies where pretty girls won business for the companies they represented.”

I turned my head towards Charlie at that moment and some of my own shoulder-length blond hair fell into my cleavage. I swept it out with an accomplished flick of my fingers, but Charlie was smiling. “I know that particular tickle well.” Claire looked over to him and smiled as well.

“Back to my grief.” he said without any obvious sadness. “I was very stressed as you can imagine and strange to relate I found that I could find relief by enjoying Sally’s clothes. Firstly I would have a small item in my pocket during the day and after the girls were asleep I might try on her things. Surprisingly, the garments fit - except for the boobs, of course. Later I would dress very largely in her clothes, but always in private. This went on for months, but transvestism was never mentioned all those years ago in public. Such things were thought of as being part of homosexuality which was still illegal.”

“I had practical problems to deal with. The girls wanted to go swimming, but were too young to go into the ladies changing rooms on their own, and once six years old they couldn’t go into men’s changing. None of the pools we went to had thought of family changing areas all those years ago.”

“I also had to buy them new clothes and that meant that they might need to visit the loo in a shop. After one occasion where I had taken Claire into a Gents toilet, the cubicles were soiled with urine that had splashed onto the floor by men’s carelessness. Her knickers had been wetted by the mess and she had to spend the next hour or so without them until I could buy a pack of new ones.”

“No more of that, I said to myself.”

“You must remember that this was before the Internet. If you wanted to buy clothes you went to a shop with shop assistants. They were often barely civil to a man buying clothes for his daughters. There was Mail Order, but Julia and Claire wanted to choose their own clothes. Not buy something from a black and white illustration in a catalogue.”

“I tended to use my secretary/receptionist as a sounding board for my practical woes. She listened attentively, but she had her own family responsibilities and could only offer well-meant but often impractical advice like paying someone to take the girls shopping. I didn’t want to hand my daughters over to some strange woman. I wanted to parent them as best I could.”

Claire took up the story. “One night I had a bad dream and went into dad’s room. He was sitting at Mum’s vanity table fully dressed in Mum’s clothes. I suppose I must have been a pragmatic child. My mind immediately came up with the expectation that Daddy could do all the things Julia and I were missing out on now that he was dressed as Mummy had been.

“Of course he jumped up with surprise and tried to make a lame excuse, but all I saw was a means to an end. The saggy cloth on his chest and body hair didn’t have much of an impact on me at that age. His short hair and bulge where his legs met didn’t seem a problem to me at the time either. It seemed to me that Mummies wore dresses and if you wore a dress then you could go into places reserved for women, however bizarre you looked.”

“Claire’s complete acceptance of my crossdressing in her mother’s clothes is one of those things that can only be described as the product of a child’s mind. That night I gave her a warm drink and tucked her back into bed where she fell asleep almost immediately. I went to bed in my PJs only to be woken in the morning with both girls demanding to be taken clothes shopping now that I had no excuse not to take them.”

“Out of the mouthes of babes and sucklings I suppose!”

They accepted that people would recognise that I was a man from my hair and lack of makeup. If that happened I would be treated as a freak and a pervert in those distant times and the girls might be taken away from me.”

“Such a threat of losing Daddy as well as Mummy kept the girls quiet, but I did discuss the plans that I gradually developed with them in an age appropriate way. I was getting desperate to find someone who could represent us at the next Trade Show, but there was no one who had detailed knowledge of the vintage and veteran car market that I knew … male or female. The idea I had was to attend a private college for a short course where actors could learn to behave as women. My sister looked after the girls for the duration of the course and after that week I could put on makeup without making a complete hash up of it, and had a modicum of deportment training including wearing heels. I don’t know what the college tutors thought I was going to do with this new knowledge. They didn’t ask and I didn’t tell them!”

“Determined to make this work I went home by car, but fully ‘dressed’. I had newly styled bleach blond hair in a tousled style held rigid by lashings of hairspray, and breast forms inside a lacy 38D basque. This was complimented with a quite modest blouse under an embroidered sheepskin jacket, chunky necklace and matching bracelet. Those were combined with a white leather miniskirt, but the tours de forces were white leather, thigh high boots with heels that I had only mastered hours before.”

“In fact the heels made it easier for me to drive. The skirt however, needed careful manoeuvring in and out of the car.”

“I rang the doorbell and when Karen, my sister opened the door she had no idea who I was. I think she said “Hello madam, can I help you? … or something of the sort.”

“I didn’t confuse Claire or Julia. Both had come to the door to see who it was. Hello Daddy. Welcome home. Can we go swimming now?”

“Karen, I think staggered backwards when the penny dropped. It took several cups of tea to explain what had been happening and why. She begrudgingly accepted that I could pass as a woman anywhere but she hadn’t grasped why I needed to appear as the archetypal Essex girl. The thigh high boots … the miniskirt … the fishnet tights… the pink plastic jewellery… the spray tan. The whole nine yards in fact.”

“I explained that at Trade Fairs the stands often had bimbos arranged decoratively. These girls were clad in beachwear and a smile. They were ogled then ignored. They were employed to attract the punters to within range of the salesmen. It would not be polite today to employ such methods. It was degrading to the girls, but this was over 50 years ago.”

“My stall was too small to have more than one person and I couldn’t afford to employ an assistant just for decoration, so I had to be the attraction. I needed to get punters within range as it were, so I could give them the information sheets about my business. Most didn’t believe that I owned the company when we got nearer to making contracts, but my attempt to look like Barbie had two functions. One was to attract from afar, but the other was to make it clear that this Essex girl knew about her business. I was a hard talking, hard nosed business person who provided a professional service and gave value for money.”

“A few punters got above themselves and thought I was an easy pickup. Essex girls as a breed are intolerant of men who do not reach their high standards. The accent may be thick, the language may be rough and incomprehensible to many. Their clothing is loud, vibrant and revealing. Anyone who got too frisky and didn’t take the advice I gave them quietly, got the treatment - a torrent of invective. I could swear in all the languages spoken in the East End of London. The abuse I poured over the victim contained references to him having had carnal knowledge of both male and female of every animal that walked, flew, swam or slithered on the face of earth. I accused his mother of having copulated with one of the unnamed horrors from the pits of Mordor and his father of being the spawn of a cockatrice. I could go on for any length of time until the miscreant withdrew. The average Essex girl knows and uses profanities as a weapon to humiliate men publicly if they overstep the limits. Only one did. I had a riding crop pushed down my leather thigh boot. I kept it there largely for effect. This man chanced his arm too often and wouldn’t take no for an answer and groped me. The thwack of the riding crop over his groin was meant to spur horses into action, but had the opposite effect on him. Two friends helped him leave.”

“We told you so”, they said quietly, but you were so convinced that any woman would fall over in their rush to have sex with you. “It ain’t necessarily so.”

“The message got around and I was never bothered in that way again.

“Have you got any photos of you dressed, I asked?”
“Yes there is an album of them on the bookcase over there. Claire, would you mind?”
“Thank you, dear.”

I went through the album slowly. It was mostly black and white images of the trade stalls with Charlie looking exactly as he had described, but also others with him dressed in much more restrained clothes taking the girls on holiday and to various events arranged by their schools. It was fifty years of very stylish dresses in one book.

“Who took all these photos”, I asked, thinking of copyright issues with publication.
“The photographers are noted on the backs of each photograph. I was quite famous at one time. People from the car restoration fraternity would come to my stall just to see what new dress I was wearing. It was quite flattering.

“Can I use some of these in an article I asked with some trepidation?”
“They have all been scanned”, Claire offered. Please give me a list of the numbers on the pages, and I will send you gifs or jpegs of the images you want. There are a few that are not for publication, though. I will highlight the ones that are too personal.”

“So what happened after the first display of your feminine side?”
“I dressed each day with care using Sally’s clothes for the first year or so, then I bought my own. No one noticed me in a normal woman’s wardrobe. The girls and I did all the things that we wanted to do together, using women’s facilities when needed. No one noticed who I was. I was just like any other Mum. I don’t think anyone cared as long they got on with their business in the restrooms and I got on with mine.”

“You may wonder how we went swimming together, but pretty swimsuits for women who have had to have double mastectomies were available, and I was not so heavily endowed that things could not be concealed between my legs. Again, people see what they want to see. A bikini with a short sarong on the beach covers everything it needs to cover. It is as simple as that. If something looks like a banana, tastes like a banana and smells like a banana, then it probably is a banana!”

“After some twenty years the business had reached its full potential and I sold it to a large consortium for two million pounds. A fortune at the time, but I was left rather bored. The girls were at University and I was wealthy, and on my own. I went on cruises and other holidays, but I remained unfulfilled.”

“Eventually I noticed an advert in a trade magazine asking for funding in exchange for equity in a small company. This start-up was developing new fabrics for clothing from plant products like hemp, bamboo and eucalyptus. The owner, Ella, had started the company with too little capital was looking for a wealthy silent partner. She got me. Not silent but fully involved and hands on. After processing, weaving and dyeing, the fibres were beautiful and made wonderful soft fabrics for dresses, shirts and skirts.“

“We both went to shows to demonstrate our fabrics to buyers and the business thrived. Our Show clothes were always meant to contrast. Ella would be in one pastel colour and I would be in another. One in a Paisley print and the other in geometric patterns for instance. Eventually Ella needed to know about my secret because she had suggested saving money by sharing a double room in the hotel during a trade fair.”

After the revelation she was quiet for perhaps thirty minutes.

“I don’t care if you are a man Charlie. I have been bi for a long time. You are welcome in my bed as a man or a woman. I shall enjoy both.”

“And that is how it stayed, a friendship with benefits (as the saying goes). She was 30 years younger than me and now I live here, she has moved on. She still runs the company, but comes and visits me every month or so.”

I could see that Charlie was getting fatigued. His head was dropping, and Claire indicated that we should go. She guided me to the visitors lounge where we continued our conversation.”

“What happened to all the dresses?”

“They are all in storage, each with a photograph of Dad wearing them.”

“Could I see them?”

“Certainly. The warehouse is only ten minutes from here. Follow me in your car and I will show you.”

We soon arrived at the warehouse and after passing through security I was led to a locked store with environmental controls. Inside were perhaps sixty dresses and accessories on hangers. Each had a tag giving the date, the designer and a photograph.

Just a quick scan of the cards showed that each of the dresses had been designed by one of the most highly revered couturiers of the twentieth century. They must have been bespoke designs for Charlie’s specific requirements.

“How did Charlie get the great design houses to create these one-off designs? Each of these dresses must have cost thousands.”

“This is one of the reasons for asking you here today” was Claire’s reply. The total collection would have cost over £M2.5 today. Over £700,000 was written as a legitimate business expense all those years ago. We don’t know whether just to sell them off at auction one at a time, or to give them to a museum. Each of the dresses has features like pockets for Charlie’s breast pads and room for his constrictive underwear. They would be useless for a woman, unless modified.”

“Why didn’t Charlie have breast implants when they became available?”

“He was happy with his appearance and hated the idea of being cut about. He had no plastic surgery of any sort, except for some laser treatment for age spots on his hands and forearms.”

“Give me a little while to think about that.”I replied.

I spent a further time opening some of the bags. The dresses started with the leather mini skirts from the sixties and the thigh length boots Charlie had mentioned. The dresses were made of sumptuous fabrics where no expense had been spared. They were essentially modest. There could be no slashes or side boob on view and below the waist the dress was usually lined.

How had I never heard of a fashion icon like Charlie who only seemed to have been famous in niche magazines relating to car restoration? Surely the main fashion magazines had missed a scoop here.

I formulated my thoughts before going back to Claire.

“Firstly. I think this is the most fabulous untold fashion story. Charlie’s story needs to be told to a wider audience before anything is done to sell the collection. I would suggest that I write a catalogue raisonné for the collection. I would love to write that in my spare time. It would be a great privilege to do it. Once the catalogue is researched and published then it is time to see if one of the great museums would buy the collection as a whole, or Sotheby’s or one of the other revered auction houses was prepared to create a named auction.”

Claire smiled. “I was hoping you would say that. I have researched your background. I believe your university degree was in fashion and I have enjoyed reading your recent articles. The financial side would have to be worked out, but Julia and I have already accepted that a record of Charlie’s wardrobe was essential as a first step, but we also agree that there can be no publication of either a book or your article until after he has died. He doesn’t know it, but he doesn’t have long left. By the time the book is ready for publication he will be no longer with us.”

And that was how it panned out. The preparation of the catalogue raisonné became my New Year’s resolution. I spent months in Charlie’s warehouse recording the detail of every outfit. Each dress had separate and often unique accessories.

After opening an eighth velvet bag to find a pristine Hèrmes handbag in beautiful leather of the most glorious quality, the penny dropped as to how much of a fashionista Charlie had been in his day.

The dress bags contained faint traces of the perfume Charlie had worn. It was distinctive, but I could not recognise it, except that it was perhaps reminiscent of Opium, the YSL hit from the 70’s. A half-empty bottle I found in a handbag was white label and just had “Charlie 15” written in beautiful handwritten calligraphy and a signature. The perfume was intensely floral but after several hours of wear masculine notes appeared. It was typical of the man that even in the seventies there was no hint that animal products like musk or civet had been used. What was also apparent was that the perfume lasted for many hours on the wearer, indicative of the use of the highest quality ingredients.

Subsequent exploration showed the signature was that of a very well known but quite secretive Parisian perfumer of the time, and further research by searching through Charlie’s papers found a receipt for the private commission from him. As it was a private commission it gave the list of ingredients and the copyright.

The book took a year to prepare and publish. We had a launch party at Dillons book shop in London and six of the dresses spanning 50 years were put on show on tailors manikins. I met Charlie’s whole family for the first time and last time that night. Ella came with her partner, both wearing dresses that had been worn at the trade fairs that she and Charle had attended.

The book took the fashion world by storm and I was told that it made after dinner conversation for months. Even at a substantial purchase price it went to a second printing in hardback and then appeared in paperback. Prints of now famous dresses went on sale as postcards and framed prints. Even the car restoration trade magazines dug out their image files and produced a colour supplement for their Christmas edition. Those also became collectors items.

I kept up with ‘the girls’ for the year it took to prepare the book. I rang Julia regularly and once asked about all Charlie’s day clothes and underwear.

“The day clothes were just bought at chain stores, but only skirts and dresses. He never wore trousers. As Charlie wore them out, or got bored with them they were given away to charity shops. Underwear was made by a lingerie maker who provided a personal and absolutely discrete service to people who had very precise needs. It was found in a nondescript mews passageway in London’s East End. Dad had bras, knickers and a variety of corsets, basques and similar items in all sorts of colours. The company he used had an equally discrete disposal service where discarded undergarments were anonymised before being shredded.”

With the success of the book, Julia licensed the manufacture of ‘Charlie 15’ to a well known perfume house. Even at a challenging price it sold well and several more production runs were commissioned. Like so many successful products, the perfume was soon analysed in the Far East; and inferior, but similar bottles of eau de parfum appeared on supermarket shelves within weeks.

Eventually the V&A in London made a substantial offer for the whole dress and accessories collection. Claire and Julia accepted it.

His grave was visited by devoted, and often weeping fans who left touching messages. Eventually a direction sign was put up to guide visitors to the graveside and a visit became something of a pilgrimage for fashion students for some years until, inevitably, the memory of him began to fade in the public’s eye.

A retrospective documentary raised his profile temporarily, but ambivalent dressing was much less risqué than it had been in his day and it was shown only on TV Channels that focussed on the creative milieu. It provided only a temporary respite from obscurity.

Charlie would not have wanted to be a source of pilgrimage, albeit a temporary one, but fame, particularly post mortem, has a funny way of creating a legend.

Now and again, my own daughters pick up a copy of the Charlie book and flick through it because I wrote it. It seems to have very little relevance to them and it is soon back on the shelves.

Now, many years after his death, I can reflect on the boost that original phone call to my magazine’s switchboard gave to my career. I could so easily have decided that a very old man in a care home had nothing to say in my world of women’s fashion, but I am eternally grateful to have made that visit against my inclinations.