skirtcafe.org

https://www.vogue.com/article/mens-fash ... -style/amp

This author is a wee bit more optimistic than I, but who knows, maybe 2022 will be the year…

The more interesting one for me was the linked article on Mark and some other guys who wear heels:
https://www.vogue.fr/vogue-hommes-en/ar ... inline_amp

Yeah, maybe 2022/3/4/5 or the 12th of Never is a good estimate too.
Sorry guys but neither of these articles really herald a new dawn in the world of men's skirts let alone general menswear at any sort of regular retail level.
However, an old saying "better to live in hope than die in despair", just keep breathing, we may be waiting for a while yet.
Steve.

More clown costumes.

Perhaps I am being desensitised because I didn't think the majority was as ridiculous as other collections.
I liked the plaid jacket, the paisley suit and it was good to see that men's jeans are finally getting ripped to shreds. I didn't like the flouro green hoodie and I think the prosthetic legs would have limited appeal.
Anyway perhaps Target or Walmart will take some inspiration for clothing the masses.

I sort of hope skirts for men don't become popular because I fear that the style will be something I don't like and then people will say "Oh that is not a man's skirt" .............. which they can't say now

Although if they offered something like the following for men, I would be a convert. Oh what fun!
https://picclick.com.au/Kitten-damour-1 ... 60549.html

Maybe, just maybe, skirts for men would gain real traction if some genuine "fun" could be added,
Injecting some joy into the proceedings would surely be a welcome change to the usual deep, dark and frankly depressing analysis.
No parody or clowning, just an honest to goodness show of happiness would bring on the miracle we are all longing for.
Or not, who knows?
Steve.

STEVIE wrote: ↑Sat Jan 01, 2022 4:24 amInjecting some joy into the proceedings would surely be a welcome change to the usual deep, dark and frankly depressing analysis.

I see a problem with this, and that's that it assumes that many men can get beyond what they're expected to think and do in the modern realm. Sadly, guys now are not allowed the emotion of joy; we're expected to be "hard" and stoic automatons. The "sensitives" amongst us of course know that to the utter bull feces, but the vast herd isn't aware of that facet. Sadly.

I watched a fancy wedding at an expensive spot today, and it, sadly, was entirely as expected. The guys were all dressed in uniform monkey-suits and the gals in a dazzling array of various stuff, with which most of them fought with throughout. 'Twas the elder women who stole the show, and made it all look easy. Bravissimo.

I had an interesting conversation with the bartender at the place I was sitting at waiting for my lady friend about the matter, and a comment of liking the variety of the bridesmaid dresses. I chimed in after the functionaries had gone outside about the differences between the gals' and guys' outfits which elicited a slight pause, some acceptance of the idea, and then a re-entrenchment. I mentioned that if I was ever to get married again (a zero decimal zero chance there) I'd do it in a glorious dress -- and since it's now known where I am that I wear skirts and dresses it was met with a genuine smile and a nod.

There is never a need to fight with one's clothing. Learn its ways before you step foot out of the house.

I'm a thousand miles from my home turf, and on day one before I could doff the heavyweight stuff that protected me from the New England cold found myself in the Historic District of Savanna, GA/USA descending "Historic Stairs -- Use At Your Own Risk" in a period-appropriate skirt and petticoat. And I never fought with it, although my hostess did have some problems with the steps, and she was wearing jeans.

It's really time to accept that skirts are for everybody.

crfriend wrote: ↑Sat Jan 01, 2022 4:51 am It's really time to accept that skirts are for everybody.

Perhaps 2022?
I received the best compliment for an awful long time from a colleague yesterday.
Referring to my clothes, "you are a great ambassador and trailblazer too"!
I just had on a polo jersey and skirt but, take all the praise going.
Her explanation was that I was making it so much easier for someone else in some unknown future?
I wondered if she may be privvy to something I'm not.
Steve.

Fellas, skirts will never hit mainstream for men until femininity is destigmatized the world over.

Right now culture is way too macho for that and many people (men and women alike) don't want to be seen in something considered feminine. And skirts are feminine, whether we want to admit it or not. They have been so for at least 1500 years, and that's a lot of culture to change... it may take centuries if ever.

Now I know many here will disagree with me on this [skirts being feminine], but consider what I'm saying here... skirts may not be feminine to you, the skirtcafe member shaking his head right now... but you are already in a skirt. We're talking about getting the rest of the men in our culture to wear a skirt, and 99% of those men believe the skirt to be a feminine garment, and men are not to be feminine!

You're not going to change that until a big chunk of those men are willing to express a little femininity. I'm sorry, but it is what it is.

Take comfort though, throughout history there have even men who weren't afraid to express femininity, it was only in the last couple of decades that this very expression finally became legal, and in the last few years it became socially tolerated. Not accepted, but tolerated. And that's good enough for me. It's a hell of a time to be alive!

Kilts are an obvious exception to this, but then again I assume we're talking about non-kilt skirts...

moonshadow wrote: ↑Sat Jan 01, 2022 2:14 pmRight now culture is way too macho for that and many people (men and women alike) don't want to be seen in something considered feminine.

With that thesis right there you nailled the problem -- machismo. There's too damned much of it in the world right now, and it's destructive and corrosive.

And skirts are feminine, whether we want to admit it or not.

When did inanimate objects acquire intellect and emotion? A skirt is a physical object -- nothing more and nothing less -- it cannot possess emotion or will. (Note that some computers occasionally approximate "personality" but that's probably a human overlay onto something physical and highly complex.)

crfriend wrote: ↑Sat Jan 01, 2022 2:22 pm

And skirts are feminine, whether we want to admit it or not.

When did inanimate objects acquire intellect and emotion? A skirt is a physical object -- nothing more and nothing less -- it cannot possess emotion or will. (Note that some computers occasionally approximate "personality" but that's probably a human overlay onto something physical and highly complex.)

It's a somewhat arbitrary quirk of human nature to assign characteristics and personality traits to inanimate objects. It has always been this way ever since the dawning of civilization.

Now you may or may not feel that way, but then again, you have already crossed the threshold into wearing whatever you want regardless of what our culture says about it. Again, we're talking about the great unwashed here. Masculinity and femininity is an arbitrary matter regardless of whether we're talking about people, places, or things. At the end of the day, it is us humans that decide what is what, and those decisions form the basis of western culture. And in that culture, skirts are feminine, and feminine is considered by our culture as weak and submissive.

Does it make it true? Maybe, maybe not. What is true for some people isn't true for others. These matters come down to the psychology of the human brain and the philosophy of the human culture and the societies that form out of that culture.

Consider vehicles, many people consider a big Detroit built, 4X4, lifted, decked out pickup truck to be "masculine", and a little late model VW beetle with eyelashes over the headlights to be "feminine". But what are they really? They're just machines, they have to personality traits of their own other than what we assign onto them. Put those faux eyelashes on the truck and paint the beetle camouflage, give it a loud sound system, do other little modifications to it (lift it, or lower it, give it low profile rims, etc), and suddenly these two vehicles have flipped their assigned "gender".

But they're just machines, and yes, what we're talking about are "just skirts". Of course they don't have gender, and that's the fact of the matter.

Since when to humans care about facts?

moonshadow wrote: ↑Sat Jan 01, 2022 2:14 pm Fellas, skirts will never hit mainstream for men until femininity is destigmatized the world over.

Right now culture is way too macho for that and many people (men and women alike) don't want to be seen in something considered feminine. And skirts are feminine, whether we want to admit it or not. They have been so for at least 1500 years, and that's a lot of culture to change... it may take centuries if ever.

Now I know many here will disagree with me on this [skirts being feminine], but consider what I'm saying here... skirts may not be feminine to you, the skirtcafe member shaking his head right now... but you are already in a skirt. We're talking about getting the rest of the men in our culture to wear a skirt, and 99% of those men believe the skirt to be a feminine garment, and men are not to be feminine!

You're not going to change that until a big chunk of those men are willing to express a little femininity. I'm sorry, but it is what it is.

Take comfort though, throughout history there have even men who weren't afraid to express femininity, it was only in the last couple of decades that this very expression finally became legal, and in the last few years it became socially tolerated. Not accepted, but tolerated. And that's good enough for me. It's a hell of a time to be alive!

Kilts are an obvious exception to this, but then again I assume we're talking about non-kilt skirts...

At 62 (63 next Tuesday), I’m too old to wait for this or that to happen to make skirts mainstream for men, and, to be perfectly honest, I don’t care about it either. I also don’t care that skirts are seen as being feminine in the minds to some, if not most people, for me, that’s the appeal of wearing them in the first place, I have no problem with that label when it comes to clothing. Lastly, I see nothing wrong with expressing femininity, with showing a softer side to my personality, if more men were willing to do that, perhaps the world wouldn’t be in the sorry shape it’s in today. And that’s my two cents thrown into the conversation.

I want to add that I think humanity assigning gender to inanimate things can be considered a good thing. My previous post shouldn't be taken as me looking down on such practices. I myself assign masculine and feminine gender to just about everything. It's part of being a human, and I believe, really, when you get right down to it, it's one of the main factors that separate us from the wild animals of the world. It's what makes life interesting, entertaining, and gives life extra value.

Without our concepts of gender, we'd just be a punch of hunter-gatherer primates, grunting at each other, living to the ripe old age of 20... if we're lucky. But then again luck would have nothing to do with it because our lives would have no purpose other than simple survival. There would be no fun, no spirituality, no contemplation. Masculinity and femininity is at the very root of what it means to be human. It's woven into our culture, our religious views, our very state of being. You can look back into the customs of history, matters as religion (virtually all of them), astrology, we've created Gods and Goddesses based on their strength or beauty, we've given gender to everything we've created.

And it just so happens, that western culture was built upon a particular religion that prizes masculinity (at least that's the current understanding, though it may not be rooted in fact [0]), as as such, in this religion, men are to behave like men, to live like men, and to adhere to masculine gender roles. The same applies to women, albeit to a lesser extent since women had far fewer rights and might not even been considered people, or at least not in the same manner of a man. Is it any surprise that many members here are non-believers? I myself only gained the courage to don a skirt for the first time thanks in no small part to my time spent exploring Wicca, which is a feminine based religion. Even the Christians among us here on SkirtCafe have found some creative way to get around the obvious masculinity and patriarchy presented in the scriptures. But as for the great unwashed across the land, regardless of what they may actually believe, western culture was founded upon Judea-Christian values, morals, and laws, and those values, morals, and laws clearly state that a man had better act like man, and skirts are out of the question! Pay no mind to the fact that Jesus and Moses alike didn't wear pants... Since when have humans been known to be reasonable and practical?

We are a masculine based culture. You need not look any further than the number of men in positions of power, consider how family lineage is traced through the last name of the men in the family. Men are expected to behave in an acceptable masculine manner, and skirts are considered feminine. Women are free to choose because their default, socially acceptable position in the world is one of submission. A woman is encouraged however to be as masculine as possible, thus she can freely wear pants and other masculine attire without it being stigmatized in the same way a man wearing a skirt would be. But even today, women who wear pants professionally tend to be more respected and treated more equally with their male colleagues than women who wear skirts. So even in womanhood, skirts are the clothing of submission.

Change that and you'll find more men wearing skirts... good luck, you're going to need it.

[0] Some believe that the God of the Hebrews was without gender and androgynous, others believe that the God was male and female, but that is hotly debated, in fact we may never really know for sure.

JeffB1959 wrote: ↑Sat Jan 01, 2022 3:13 pm At 62 (63 next Tuesday), I’m too old to wait for this or that to happen to make skirts mainstream for men, and, to be perfectly honest, I don’t care about it either. I also don’t care that skirts are seen as being feminine in the minds to some, if not most people, for me, that’s the appeal of wearing them in the first place, I have no problem with that label when it comes to clothing. Lastly, I see nothing wrong with expressing femininity, with showing a softer side to my personality, if more men were willing to do that, perhaps the world wouldn’t be in the sorry shape it’s in today. And that’s my two cents thrown into the conversation.

This is exactly the point I'm driving at... Jeff gets it. I agree completely. I too, take zero issue with being seen as feminine, and that's why I wear whatever the hell I want and don't worry about people think about it.

moonshadow wrote: ↑Sat Jan 01, 2022 3:34 pm[...] We are a masculine based culture. You need not look any further than the number of men in positions of power, consider how family lineage is traced through the last name of the men in the family.

My problem with this assertion is that the traditional roles of masculine/feminine have largely disappeared and been replaced with machismo and an ill-defined role that is neither masculine nor feminine but which has more of the former than the latter. The first is where the "men" are expected to reside; the latter where the "women" are. Study the notion of "[rad-fem hate-speech redacted]" and you'll come to a textbook definition of machismo. What masculinity used to be is a dead cause -- lost likely forever.

Thus, men cannot be masculine, they must be a low-grade parody of what it means to be a "man" (a deeply insecure, paranoid, and violent ape) because the other avenues have been blocked off.

Savannah has been an eye-opener, mainly because I am so different from the norms, and I've been getting feedback, both direct and indirect. The openness "down here" is astonishing, and I've picked up more fantastic comments in the few days I've been here than I get in a year back home -- and it's all positive save for one close call with an overly macho type which is why I'm in a hotel now instead of a spare bedroom at my lady-friend's place.

crfriend wrote: ↑Sat Jan 01, 2022 4:20 pm [...]

We are a masculine based culture. You need not look any further than the number of men in positions of power, consider how family lineage is traced through the last name of the men in the family.

My problem with this assertion is that the traditional roles of masculine/feminine have largely disappeared and been replaced with machismo and an ill-defined role that is neither masculine nor feminine but which has more of the former than the latter. The first is where the "men" are expected to reside; the latter where the "women" are. Study the notion of "[rad-fem hate-speech redacted]" and you'll come to a textbook definition of machismo. What masculinity used to be is a dead cause -- lost likely forever.

I can see what you're saying. An intriguing perspective. Having not been alive during and prior to the Victorian era and the Industrial Revolution, I can only gauge an opinion based on what I've heard and read over the years. If anything, prior to the Industrial revolution and the modern notions of the capitalist society, my overall understanding of society prior to the industrial revolution is not so much one of masculine vs feminine classes, but rather one of the ruling class vs the peasantry. I understand that during those days, peasants were generally forbidden to wear clothing designed for the ruling class, and thus was generally restricted to boring, dull, and bland clothing. Flamboyance and flair was reserved for the ruling classes only, mostly royalty. It was less a matter of what you carried between your legs, but more a matter of what you carried in your purse, or better yet, what your last name and pedigree was.

Grated we still have a "ruling class" and a "peasantry" to a degree, but at least today the peasants are free to express themselves anyway they choose, even if they have to deal with the occasional gawk or ribbing over it. In fact, it is somewhat ironic that the roles have shifted. Today it's the ruling class that are expected to wear the "monkey suits" and be drab and somber... I personally think we have the late industrial revolution to thank for that. There is no way Rockefeller or J.P. Morgan would have been taken seriously if they wore dresses to the office. Even people like Jeff Bezos isn't immune, consider the giant penis he designed to ride to the edge of space [0]. But us lowlifes can wear whatever we want, because we just don't matter in the grand scheme of things. - Which is likely why the poor class and even the working class has gotten so unrefined and crass in the recent decades- because we just don't matter.

I guess we have to take the bad with the good.

[0] Of course to be fair, a spaceship shaped like a giant vagina might not be very aerodynamic.