- The Observer,
- Sunday February 17, 2002
What do David Bowie, David Beckham and Prince Charles have in common? They have all been men in skirts and thus heroes of a movement for men's fashion freedom with a strong presence on the internet and now at the V&A.
If women can wear trousers, slacks and jeans, they argue, why shouldn't men have equal access to kilts, sarongs, and minis? Why should they be limited to a virtual uniform, while menswear designers have to repeat the same boring combinations season after season? Why shouldn't men have the same rights to tights, and enjoy the same pleasures of a breeze on the knees?
Wearing skirts, they claim, has nothing to do with sexual orientation: you don't have be gay to like Gaultier. Indeed, the skirt is a manly and historically sanctioned garment, which should be defended against the rule of Levi's and Gap.
At the press preview, several men in skirts (MIS), representing a range of personal fashion decisions, had turned out. There, sipping champagne, was a guy with dreads, in a brown suede studded kilt; a ponytailed man in a kilt and windbreaker;a Full Scottish, with Highland bonnet; and a black denim Utilikilt (brand-name for a line of rough-and-ready workingmen's skirts) worn with cowboy boots. They all looked great. On the web, MIS enthusiasts explain where to find their skirts, how to accessorise (chunky heels, DMs, wide belts, toolkits) and how to groom (shave your legs, exfoliate, use artificial tanner, wear pantyhose). If men think this is freedom, I say let them go for it.
Curator Andrew Bolton, whose book on the subject will be out in June, has selected 60 skirt designs for this show, from the historical toga, frock coat and petticoat breeches to football gear, futuristic tunics and fetish leather with chains and locks. Among the designers represented are John Bartlett, Kenzo, Paul Smith, Vivienne Westwood, Ozwald Boateng, Dolce & Gabbana, Moschino, Tommy Hilfiger and Burberry, as well as items from the celebrity end of punk and grunge.
It's a provocative look at the evolution of men's fashion, including boys' wear, from the loose to the bifurcated and fitted. Without emphasising the dandy, it makes the point that the gender of clothing is culturally and historically inflected, and that there is nothing inherently masculine in covering the lower parts of the body in fabric tubes.
Many of the skirts, kilts, sarongs, dhotis and kaftans are strikingly beautiful in terms of fabric and design. Gaultier's multi-coloured Thai silk 'deconstructed' kilt, Dries van Noten's kaftan - handpainted with hearts, roses, snakes, and a mystic eye - Cavalli's jellaba for 'modern explorers' - all would look wonderful on almost any beach. After the bathrobe, the kaftan is the most comfortable garment ever invented and men living in hot climates have always adopted some version of it.
But in a cold climate, the comfort value of the male skirt is harder to defend. Even for the young and fit, a lot of hardboiled macho display has to counteract the feminising message of the skirt. Bare chests, heavy metal and stonking great boots balance the leather kilts of the 'Buffalo' (Caribbean for rude boy) style promoted by The Face in 1983-87, featuring hunky boys with their bare legs spread wide apart. Sexy, to be sure, but nothing to cuddle up to, and a bit problematic at the office, even for dress-down Fridays.
Kurt Cobain, whose lilac baby-doll dress has been copied by Anna Sui, could play the radicalism of grunge and the decadence of hard drugs against calico innocence. But Vivienne Westwood's delicate, lace miniskirt looks girlish, no matter how huge and hairy the tweed jacket that tops it. Her styles would look interesting on women, but border on travesty, if not transvestism, for men.
The question of androgyny, and of the thin line between men in skirts and women in jackets, comes up in a number of the designs. At the entrance to the show in the Dress Galleries, for example, is a showcase featuring three black suits with tightly fitted jackets and long narrow skirts, designed by Donna Karan, Yohji Yamamoto, and Carlo Pignatelli. Sombre, even a bit dominatrix, they would have done very well for an elegant lesbian in Paris or Berlin circa 1920, perhaps accessorised by a smart monocle and a carnation.
But why men would want to wear such clothes of their own free will is hard for me to understand. They are confining, aesthetically uninteresting, and stiff - a woman's imitation of male dress, as secondary as a sidesaddle. They hark back to the Victorian customs of Charlotte Brontë's Villette, where the heroine, Lucy Snowe, is a last-minute stand-in for a student playing a male role in the school play. She's supposed to wear 'masculine vestments', but her feminine modesty is too strong, and instead, 'retaining my women's garb, without the slightest retrenchment, I merely assumed in addition, a little vest, a collar. And cravat, and a paletot of small dimensions'.
I suppose these skirt-suits are a postmodern experiment for the designers, a form of play like the surrealists' fur-lined teacup. On the other hand, if there are men who long to exchange the ease of trousers for the hobbling and high maintenance of tight skirts, I have a few I'd be happy to give away.
On 27 February at 1pm and 8pm, there will be a Fashion in Motion event at the V&A, with models wearing skirts by contemporary designers
