Even though designers like Yohji Yamamoto and Takahiro Miyashita [number (n)ine] have really brought skirts for men in the forefront recently, this certainly is not a new phenomenon. This has been going on and incubating for years, we’re talking decades.
Gaulthier 1986
Article in GQ (don’t know the date, but it’s old)
Tommy Hilfiger ad campaign
images: Prof. Watson’s slide lecture
images:men.style.com
It’s interesting to think that at one point, women were not even allowed to wear pants, and the thought of men in skirts was the farthest thing from acceptable. We’re inching closer to the point where gender roles don’t really exist. There really isn’t one thing men can do that women can’t, and vice versa. It’s only natural that fashion adopts the same ideology and moves in the same direction as the rest of society. Men can wear what women can and women can wear what men can. Gender roles often connote negative, cliché ideas (women are at home, men are out working, that sort of thing). With that obliterated, there is pressure taken off society. A pretty liberating thing, needless to say.
Anyway, I am all for the men in skirts idea. Besides the role-reversal/gender role aspect of it, I think it’s a cool look and creates an interesting silhouette (broad shoulders up top, straight and lean towards the bottom, though it depends what kind of skirt is being worn).
