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
