Blessed with a creative eye, he makes elaborate costumes for Leah, a former winner of Miss Alternative London, creating a womanly figure that would make most women green with envy. For Gavin, Leah is a hobby – but one he takes very seriously, despite not having had surgery, and never telling his family.
'I've never liked the sort of ambiguity thing,' he explains. 'If I'm dressed as a guy, I like to look like a guy; if I'm dressed as a woman, I like to look like a woman. I don't like to look like something in between. You know, I'm a guy 99.9% of the time… I don't want people to look at me and think, 'What's that? Is that a boy? Is that girl? What are they all about, they look a bit weird'.'
Leah is a labour of love for Gavin, but he takes huge pleasure in the process each time he transforms into her, saying: 'I class myself as the original designer woman. I designed myself. I put a lot of thought and effort into each little individual part; hair, makeup, figure, shape. I look at her as kind of a work of art; basically, Gavin is the canvas and Leah is painted on top, and that's that I'm looking at. If it was just me looking in the mirror, that wouldn't do anything. But when I'm all made up, with all the hair and the rest of it, the thing I create I find incredibly erotic.'
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