Clothes Shopping plus Body/Gender Dysphoria does not equal Happiness

Max’s body shape is changing quite a bit, and a lot of his clothes are not fitting him so well anymore. He did not want to go shopping until he was happy with his body, but he was running out of things to wear - so he had to suck it up and go shopping. We were in the city after work on a Wednesday night, and before meeting up with some new friends.
Now, some background might be in order. Max did not like clothes shopping before starting his transition. He especially dislikes shop assistance who try to talk to him and offer assistance. We had a really good pattern down, we would walk in and I would start a mundane conversation with the shop assistant to distract them, while Max would look at clothes. This worked quite well.
We went into a big department store, because usually there are less shop assistants to deal with, but for some reason they were everywhere. We were looking at knitted vests and jumpers for the winter weather. Max was a bit ‘touchy’ as soon as we walked in. I was asking what he was interested in buying and he replied “Wool vests, not cotton. Cotton is too clingy”. The touchiness escalated as we couldn’t fine pure wool vests or that the vests were to thin or small. Max kept saying “I cannot wear clingy clothes, people will notice I have breasts.” This is the point where a shop assistant came up to ask us if we need any help. Max cracked it, and muttered under his breath about helping hide his ‘chesticles’ (what he now calls his breasts). I quickly stepped in and ushered the shop assistant away. We finally found some wool vests and jumpers (and they were on sale too), and Max assisted on getting the biggest size he could manage to wear. This is when it dawned on me – clothes’s shopping is not fun when you have body/gender dysphoria and if we can avoid it as much as possible it would be a good thing.
One super important thing that I have learnt about coping with Max’s transition is to not take any of the moodiness personally and to be there for him when he is not coping well. This has helped me be there for him when things are really difficult for him instead of becoming an extra element to the issue.