It must have finally happened . Many years ago women put on
trousers, white shirts and jackets for the first time in order to
demonstrate their independence. How will they react today, when men
are the ones who reach for skirts?
Contemporary fashion is pretty standardized and breaks off with the
traditional division for men and women designs and style. From
bathing suits to trench coats men and women wear the same patterns:
military camouflage colours, pastel abstractions, flowers and
legendary Burberry tartan. Recently mens fashion, following ladies
who borrowed many elements of menswear (let me remind here Yves
Saint-Laurent's dinner jacket), adopt lady's clothing and
materials, such as silk, satin, transparent blouses or asymmetrical
necklines.
Moreover, mens fashion reached for jealously guarded lady's
attribute: man entered 21st century in a skirt. Skirt appearance in
menswear may be compared only with the spread of trousers among
women, which took place fifty years ago. Anyhow, men wearing skirts
cause the same fuss as women did when they put on trousers for the
first time.
A man wearing skirt may be quite shocking view, for some of us it
seems totally against nature. However, we should not forget that
many centuries ago men were wearing clothes similar in their shapes
to modern skirts. Loose piece of material surrounding their hips
was the basic clothing element, not only in distant civilizations-
our ancestors had been wearing them until trousers were invented.
Those primeval clothes' forms survived in traditional folk costumes
of some European nations. The most typical example is Scotch kilt
and Greek fustanella. Until today, within many cultures men are
wearing loose tunics, reaching knees or ground. Contemporary
fashion designers took on huge task- to rise the skirt tradition
among men of European culture.
The most famous predecessor of this trend, Jean-Paul Gaultier,
presented the models of men skirts in 1985 during his avant-garde
fashion show "Une garde-robe pour deux" (Wardrobe for two). The
provocation made by enfant terrible of French fashion, blazed a
trail for other stylists: many famous designers such as
Dolce & Gabbana, Kenzo, Nikos and Karine Hamnet followed his
example putting skirts on their men models. Also the famous
clothing brands released kilts and skirts designed especially for
men. H&M as well as C&A offer several models of wallet
skirts, Levis suggests young men to wear jeans kilts and Gap
experiments on skirts with right fastener, although officially they
are not prepared especially for male clientele.
The fact that stylists who design menswear draw inspiration from
ladies fashion, do not mean that men are becoming effeminate and
want to imitate women. Despite of ambiguous reproaches, man wearing
skirt identifies with the male part of population. Choosing such
style he probably thinks about standing out or keeping pace with
current fashion. On the contrary to ladies' trousers, which
determined the beginning of emancipation process by transgressing
the clothing taboo, the advocates of male skirts propose the
abolishment of artificial divisions in fashion, the opening for
daring proposals and enriching mens wear by feminine element.
Majority of men, despite their willingness to wear skirt, do not
have enough courage to do it, coming across their relatives'
resistance and lack of understanding (especially regarding women).
Most determined ones look for practical advices: is it ok for a man
to wear tights together with the skirt, and what kind of tights
should they wear? Should they have their legs shaved for the
aesthetic reasons? The answer for growing number of such questions
arising among men may be for example the Comfilon tights (available
via Internet) prepared especially for men. Shaving legs and wearing
tights are left for the individual consideration. Both issues may
be solved by choosing long skirt, covering the legs.
For the time being this kind of modern outfit remains only an
interesting novelty, receiving wide recognition mostly within the
eccentrics, enthusiasts and fashion victims. It must take some time
and deep social changes for mens skirts to gain wider male
audience's approval. The first step in this direction would be
tearing the skirt off the female context and convincing men that
the authentic masculinity should not be afraid of skirts.
This is exactly what Sandra Kuratle, a stylist from Zurich,
underlines. From the beginning of her carrier she has been
designing mens skirts. Thanks to enormous determination she managed
to create the brand of male skirts AMOK, which is nowadays very
popular in Switzerland, Germany and Nederlands.
At the same time Sandra Kuratle admits that it takes a lot of
self-confidence of a man to wear a skirt as an everyday outfit.
Therefore the leitmotiv of her collection originally sounds:
skirt makes a man. She also underlines the fact that she does not
follows the trends of women fashion, on the contrary, she tries to
give the male skirt as many features of menswear as it is possible.
According to Kuratle it is impossible to convince men totally to
ladies style. Men skirt not only cannot remind its female
equivalent, but also must offer the comfort of feeling free while
wearing it, otherwise it may lose in the competition with
trousers.
AMOK collection consists of fourty models: from stiff skirts made
of jeans, through classic and elegant models up to fashionable
techno style. Depending on their tastes the clients may choose
within different lengths. Most common fabrics are cotton,
polyester, linen, viscose and wool- thinner for spring/summer
season and thicker, quilted or with the lining for autumn/winter
season. Wide range of skirts appeared from the combination of
different styles, colours and fibres, to persuade men to wear
skirt, especially regarding its esthetic and practical values. To
do so, Sandra Kiratle offers also jackets, which go with the
skirts, satisfying her clients of more traditional tastes. She
hopes, that along with the changes of the opinions about men
wearing skirts, the popularity of her designs will also rise.
author: m_zawadzka
