Shapeshifters

Custom, hand-made binders and sports bras

Shapeshifters Blog

Custom Cuts: Which one next?

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Hey, shapeshifters! Hope your October’s been appropriately spoopy.

I’ve been writing things on the various Custom Cut options, and I’d like your input: which binder option would you most like to hear more about?

Your choices are:

  1. Low Neck / High Neck

  2. Mesh Back

  3. Relaxed Fit

  4. Narrow Straps / Wide Straps

  5. Taper In At Waist

  6. Something else! (Tell us in the comments!)

Leave a comment below with your pick and I’ll write up that post for next week!

*ETA: The winner is Relaxed Fit! Read all about it right here.

Out in the Open.

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Happy fall, shapeshifters! Today I’m gonna talk about something real close to my heart.

When we achieved escape velocity from the greater NYC orbit back in early 2016, we landed in Brattleboro, Vermont. It’s mid-size, as they go, “rural” to a big city but “in town” if you live up the mountain. We loved it from the start, but I won’t lie: I worried about finding other people who were Not Straight.

I didn’t need to. We went to a Pride Family Picnic in June, found out about the local queer game night, and made friends right away. The next year I joined a trans book club and went to a rural queer summit, where I got to talk about how bees have three genders with current and potential gay beekeepers.

The year after was 2018. Life got harder for trans people last year, and our local community had our backs. We rallied, went to protests, built networks. That fall at the summit I learned about community organizing and sustainable local farming — and more about beekeeping, within a social justice framework.

All of these amazing, wonderful, friend-connecting and community-making things were and are enabled, run, and/or sparked by Out in the Open, our local LGBT nonprofit. Though they’re based in Brattleboro, they do work all through northern New England, connecting rural LGBT folks and building community, visibility, knowledge, and power.

I should say we, now: last year I joined the board, and now I put some hours of my spare time into helping this really essential org do its local community thing.

The 2019 summit is this weekend. I’m going to run a sewing skillshare and participate in a play reading.

This post has two purposes: first, I want to encourage all of you, no matter where you live, to reach out and look around and see if there’s an organization like this near you. There is really nothing like feeling safe while you do totally ordinary friendmaking things like herbalism walks, or board games, or community theater. Or, for that matter, going to a protest to stand tall and claim your basic human rights.

“But Eli,” you say, “we don’t all live in New England. There’s nothing like that outside of your socialist-liberal northeastern bubble.”

To which I say, we’ve donated binders this year to orgs in Wisconsin and North Carolina, so, maybe! Maybe not. But if you check, you might find a Social Justice Center that hosts LGBT groups, or an old Gay Men’s Club with a defunct website that’s quietly expanded its membership. You never quite know. We’re all over the map, after all.

The second reason for this post is to let you know that Out in the Open has a quilt raffle going on right now, and every ticket is a chance to win this ridiculously heartwarming rainbow quilt. Tickets are $5, with discounts for multiples. You can buy one here, if you like. All money goes to the organization that helped Shapeshifters find a home.

It’s so cozy. And well-made! If we win it, I’m going to live under this thing all winter.
It’s so cozy. And well-made! If we win it, I’m going to live under this thing all winter.

We’re switching to recyclable packaging.

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Hey y’all. It’s Climate Strike day.

If you’re out there on the streets, in the cities, if you’re turning down your lights and turning up the noise, our power to you.

I spent the morning reading about sustainable packaging. EcoEnclose has an amazing resource center – if you sell things, or are thinking about doing so, I highly recommend taking a look.

I think I shipped the first Shapeshifters binders in bubble mailers I bought at CVS. Once we had more than a few orders, we picked up a case of the cheapest possible thin plastic (poly) mailers off of Amazon. Overhead costs were hard, and we worked with anything to get us by in those days. Still could’ve thought about it more, though.

Been thinking about it a lot since.

Today we’re using up the last of our cheap poly mailers. I went back and forth for awhile on whether to replace them with 100% recycled poly mailers (lighter, makes a market for other recycling, less carbon footprint to make) or 100% recycled paper mailers (much easier to recycle, biodegradable, won’t end up in the ocean.)

Here’s the thing: we’re here for you. We want to make buying a custom, well-fit garment as easy and accessible as possible for all of you. And though poly bags can be recycled, they need to be brought to a drop-off point at a grocery store or the like, and that’s out of reach for a lot of folks and a pain for many more.

So.

Starting October, Shapeshifters products will be shipped in paper mailers with paper stick-on labels. The whole package will be fully curbside-recyclable and biodegradable. As always, the exterior will be unmarked, with the same Vermont return address and no company name.

Everyone can make changes. Every change counts. We can all get there, making changes where we can, pushing on every front.

We’re working on other steps, too, harder changes that will take longer and have greater impact. We’re planning for a future, and that means breaking habits and fixing problems.

Remember when I said here’s to five thousand more?

I meant it.

“Skin-Tone Binders”

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Funny thing happened in August, friends.

We put the Nude binders on sale.

And our income tanked.

Nobody seemed to see the sale posts. Facebook barred me from uploading a short video thanking customers. Twitter was suddenly full of glitches and empty of retweets.

It took several days to figure it out: the word “nude” is completely verboten. A URL with “nude” in it is dead in the water. I can’t prove it, but I’m fairly sure we were showing up lower in Google search results. I’m sure having an ~obscenity flag~ put next to our [LGBT Business tags] did not help, either.

So that’s why they’re all labeled “skin-tone”, now.

Two days after we made that change, the numbers bounced back up.

FOSTA/SESTA has hurt many, many people way more than us. I can’t even imagine what it must be like to be a sex worker on the internet right now. But I thought you all might want to know how the wider culture of greater internet censorship is hurting us, too; we’re delaying a new hire, working late hours, and making hard choices on the personal budget side besides.

All this because the Google-Twitter-Facebook triumvarate has decided to err on the side of “everything is obscenity, except, perhaps, the actual porn bots.” And, of course, because these three companies own the internet now.

Production report: Sept 2019

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Hello, shapeshifters! Remember this new workhorse machine I photographed in August? I said, then, that it wasn’t quite ready for work, but it would be soon!

Ah, how hopeful that was.
Ah, how hopeful that was.

This serger has fought me every step of the way. Every time I’ve worked out one trouble, another one presented itself. I consulted a sewing machine expert on looper settings and the tension went wonky. I fixed the tension balance and the needle started snapping against the needle guard. I shifted the needle guard and the upper looper’s dulled edge skipped a stitch every 10”-12”, which I couldn’t have seen before, because the looper settings were causing skipped stitches every 3”-4”.

We’ve named it Jason. Partially because we accidentally bathed it in machine oil when it got here, and before that it looked like it had been through some rough times. Partially because it’s fighting me throughout reconstitution and recovery, testing me, I think, to see how far I will go to help it. And partially because it came with serrated knives.

Last week our expert and I replaced the dulled upper looper, which was tricky because this part was attached to the rest of the machine in a way unlike any illustration in any manual. Also, the replacement part I ordered arrived just a hair, a tiny hair too big to go into its slot, so there was some hand-filing to do to get it down to size.

With that final arm in place, Jason was finally ready to roll. We tested, and…

now it skips a stitch every 20”. Or so.

We’re still working to get this one perfect. It’s so close.

All that said! Although August and September-to-date didn’t benefit from the increase in production times I’d hoped Jason would bring, we certainly didn’t slow down. We’re on schedule for a 5-week wait time by Friday the 27th, and if all goes well, down to a 4-week wait time by October.

Which is important, because that means Halloween orders will arrive in time if you place them in September! We’re delighted to offer a whole bunch of Halloween prints again this year, and we hope you like them.

Pinstripes are back! Classy, classy pinstripes. Hoping to make this one a regular feature again.
Pinstripes are back! Classy, classy pinstripes. Hoping to make this one a regular feature again.

All of our new mesh colors are in, and with the Lace Sale on until the 19th now’s the time to combine a fancy lace with a vivid underlayer. The red is actually darker than expected. I’m digging it. We’re considering renaming it Blood Red just so the lace versions become Wizard’s Blood, Cleric’s Blood, Rogue’s Blood.

Wizard’s Blood. Eh? Ehhh?
Wizard’s Blood. Eh? Ehhh?

In other news, we cleared order #6000! Holy crap! Y’all are great. 2019 is the very first year we’ve ever cleared two thousand-order milestones in one year, and at this rate we might make the third before 2020.

By Halloween, we will have made six thousand orders. That’s bigger than the population of my mother’s hometown.

Every time we hit one of these, I think about a thousand. I made a thousand origami cranes in high school. I wrote thousand-word fanfic in college. I know what a thousand feels like now more than ever, how it breaks down, how the tens and the fifties and the hundreds fall away piece by piece until you’re there.

Here’s to a thousand more.

Lace Sale.

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There’s a story about the lace chest binder.

Around the time we were first starting this company, maybe late 2014 or early 2015, a popular post went around Transmasc Tumblr™️ that I’ve never forgotten. It led with a selfie, a dapper young man wearing a long skirt which he’d gathered in one hand to show the camera, pointing at the fabric with a raised eyebrow.

The text went something like, “What’s that!? It’s ya boy Rob, wearing a skirt!! Does this make him less of a boy? No! Are his pronouns still he/him? Fuck yeah! Is gender on clothing kinda bullshit? Yeah it is!”

Or something like it. I’m paraphrasing. There was probably more caps, and more exclamation points.

Anyway, it stuck with me. I was making chest binders, a very specific kind of gendered and gendering garment, and I was putting colors on them, which at the time was so weird and Out There already that I was a little scared to go farther. But what was that fear about, anyway? Random dudes grouching at me on the internet? If someone younger than me could just put on a skirt and yell about it, what excuse did I have to hold myself back?

The only time I’d voluntarily worn lace, up to that point, was as an overlay on the cuffs of the wild, so-long-in-back-it-had-a-train jacket I’d made to wear for my wedding. It was a piratical, multiply-gendered, red-and-glittery-black garment that took me ages to sew and I was so proud of it. The cuffs were red silk under black lace. They look so good in the photos.

A week or so after that post crossed my dash, I went into Spandex Lab and picked out the stretch lace I’d been eyeing. Listed it on the store, with just a picture of the lace. Someone bought one almost immediately. We sold about four or five, and then someone specifically emailed us to thank us for having them up. They felt seen, just by the existence of a lacy binder.

A couple years later someone ordered one to wear for their wedding. When that order came in, you’d better believe I cried about it.

All this to say, lace binders are now on sale, until the 19th. The discount code is LV10GENDER.

This sale is dedicated to our boy Rob.

Image: A Cleric’s Yew short binder . Not unlike the one we made for that wedding.
Image: A Cleric’s Yew short binder . Not unlike the one we made for that wedding.

Custom Cuts: High Arms and Low Arms

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Custom Cuts are the special options available for selection in your measurements form! This series of blog posts will go into detail on each of those options, and why one or more might be right for you.

Evening, friends! Let’s talk about armholes.

“My current binder digs in under the arms and leaves U-shaped welts around my side. It’s really uncomfortable and doesn’t help the bind at all.”

“I spill out the sides of my binder all the time. It kind of hurts and it looks weird, too.”

Has this been you? If so, good news: your binder shouldn’t be doing this, and it doesn’t have to. A comfortable binder should lay flat on all edges, snug, neither so high at the arms that it cuts in nor so low that it lets you spill out.

The thing is, all bodies are different. All humans are different. This is true even in ways that we don’t usually think about, like, say, in the shape of fat distribution around the upper side chest, or, how big around your arms are, or, how sensitive the skin might be right under them and down the side. Two people with the exact same measurements often experience the same size chest binder very differently!

If you order a binder and find that the arms are cutting in, they’re too high for you. Likewise, if you spill out of the side, the arms are too low for you. This happens all the time, and it’s why Low Arms and High Arms were the first custom cuts we started to offer.

Each option changes the height of our standard cut by 1”. For more than that, make a special request!

High Arms

Spilling out? While wearing your current binder, lift one arm and press your hand over the armhole to cover 1” more than the fabric. If that feels better, we recommend requesting High Arms on your next order.

Alternatively, hike your binder up by its straps and pinch them! Does it feel better to shift everything up a bit? This is the equivalent of a High Arms + High Neck combo.

Extra-High: A few times, customers have requested that we raise the arms by 2” instead of 1”. Every customer who has tried this in my memory has sent their binder back for alterations, asking them to be lowered again. This is not to say that you won’t need it, but I do recommend trying out the regular 1” High Arms option first.

Image: A Poseidon binder with high arms, cut 1” higher than standard.
Image: A Poseidon binder with high arms, cut 1” higher than standard.

Low Arms

Feeling sore? Seeing red marks under your arms after a long day? Low Arms might be a good option. I especially prefer my Low Arms relaxed-fit binder for yoga, wrestling, and other activities where I might be moving around and stretching in unusual ways. Customers who do rowing and archery have also reported that lowered armholes make a more comfortable binder for these activities.

*Edit: A very kind customer on Facebook has this to say!

I’m a wheelchair user and your low arm binders have been a real blessing. Pushing a chair involves a lot of back and forth arm movement and all other binders left my underarms red and raw. Meanwhile I wore a Shapeshifters binder for a 7km roll with my family without any repercussions. I wouldn’t have any other binder now.

Low-cost option: If your current binder is pinching in and you don’t have the spare cash for a new one, take it to a local tailor. Ask if they have a serger and can just take down the arms by 1/2” or 1” or so. Or, if you’re feeling adventurous, just cut that hem right out. Most binders are made of non-fray materials, so the hem finishing is more aesthetic than functional.

Extra-Low: In 5+ years of making custom-cut binders, only one customer has ever asked us for a 2” lowering of the arms. For particular reasons, it was very difficult for this customer to feel any pressure along their sides at certain points. They loved it.

Image: a Limited Edition Gothic Still Life binder with Low Arms and Low Neck.
Image: a Limited Edition Gothic Still Life binder with Low Arms and Low Neck.

Special Cases and Combos

High arms + High neck = Maximum coverage. If you want to be absolutely sure that your binder will cover as much as possible, request both High Arms and High Neck!

Image: A Limited Edition No Signal binder with High Arms, High Neck, and Wide Straps. Watch for an entry on Wide and Narrow Straps, coming soon!
Image: A Limited Edition No Signal binder with High Arms, High Neck, and Wide Straps. Watch for an entry on Wide and Narrow Straps, coming soon!

Low arms + Short binders: Be Wary. If you’re ordering a Short binder with a length of 14” or less, and you request Low Arms, the side seam can get very short. Since the side seam determines the working horizontal span of the binder, this may reduce the effective binding area down to a relatively narrow band across the chest. If you want Low Arms on a Short binder, we highly recommend a length of 15”-16”.

Image: A Short black mesh binder with Low Arms. The side seam takes up less of the vertical length than the shoulder.
Image: A Short black mesh binder with Low Arms. The side seam takes up less of the vertical length than the shoulder.

Racerback + Low Arms: Not offered. This combination never seems to work for anyone, so we’re no longer offering it as an option. My theory is that racerbacks give so much space in the armhole already, that if you lower the arms further, the tension is lost and everything slides out. Even racerbacks with the standard armholes come back to us for a “Higher Arms Please” alteration far more often than non-racerback binders. So if you’re thinking about a racerback binder, consider requesting High Arms along with! It might help.

Side zipper + High Arms: Possible comfort issues. This combination runs a real risk of a closed zipper’s pull and clasp pressing into your side. Even if you are not normally sensitive to fabric close under your arm, the plastic zipper pull may be a different sensation. Generally, we recommend a front zipper with high arms.

Coming from gc2b: In general, we have heard from customers that gc2b binders have lower armholes than anyone else’s. If you find that you like the gc2b cut, you may want to try Low Arms from us. Conversely, if it’s too low for you, you may find that our standard fit works!

Coming from Underworks: In general, our armhole heights are comparable to those from Underworks, more or less. If you find that an Underworks cut works for you, try out our standard fit.

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