Thoughts concerning silhouettes

[robehickman]

Have been thinking about how silhouette and subdivisions play into the appearance of skirts on men. Typically male body shapes are such that the shoulders are wider than the hips (or similar in width to the hips), and I've observed that the kilt, many medieval style tunics, and also a lot of men's bath robes, the shape of the skirt part is a similar shape to the torso, as if it were mirrored vertically at the waist, creating a wide - narrow - wide silhouette.

Women by comparison generally have a more pronounced difference in the widths of their hips in comparison to their waist, and the design of many skirts and dresses extrapolates from the curve between the two in various ways, or are designed to be 'flared out' by the hips - the same skirt on many men would hang straight down and create a very different silhouette.

Thus, I suspect that there's value in choosing skirts that create their own shape that balances sympathetically with the upper body, through being designed with a somewhat stiffer fabric, or creating shape just through fullness / fabric gathering, as it gives more control over the silhouette of the skirt in relation to the whole body / outfit.

The tendency for men to have more visual mass in their upper body is probably also why skirts on men tend to pair well with large boots, because it adds additional visual weight to the lower body in counterbalance.

Thoughts?

Edit:

I put my thoughts on this into an article:

https://robehickman.com/skirt-silhouettes-men

[Seb]

I think there is merit in what your saying. I also think that skirts that flare out or fall straight instead of curving inwards hugging the legs makes for a more balanced, solid look.

[Faldaguy]

Clearly the cut of some garments and the shape of the wearer give different effects. My eye for what is 'stylish' is not well developed-- but what I do find problematic is that often when I am pairing a solid shirt with a patterned skirt -- if the skirt pattern is meant to be straight horizontally, that my belly or lack of hips/rump result in the pattern being skewed or the hemline being drawn up; or the entire skirt hanging catawampus. I suppose a couple extra trips to the gym might be a partial fix, but blaming anatomical depravation comes without guilt!

[denimini]

I think whatever works for the individual. I reckon there is as much variation of body shapes within a gender than between genders.
I agree that certain combinations in style of clothing suit particular body shapes. Most people look good in a flared skirt but not all do in tight fitting garments.

[Mouse]

The tendency for men to have more visual mass in their upper body is probably also why skirts on men tend to pair well with large boots, because it adds additional visual weight to the lower body in counterbalance.

I gravitate to boots and chunky shoes in my style, since I think it gives me a grounded male look. Even in heels, I still buy boots.

I have always liked boots worn by women and as soon as I started wearing skirts in public, boots seemed a no brainer.

[rode_kater]

Men typically have an "inverted triangle" shape, as do many women (often athletes). There's plenty of guides online how to style that, and yes, the A-line skirt is one of the popular recommendations.

[robehickman]

Men typically have an "inverted triangle" shape, as do many women (often athletes). There's plenty of guides online how to style that, and yes, the A-line skirt is one of the popular recommendations.

Thanks the following video regarding styling for women with that body shape recommends adding gathers / pleating around the waist and hips to increase the weight there, which for a woman would make sense in bringing the silhouette more into line with the 'stereotypical female body shape'.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMCNQ9I7KOc

However styling advice that I've previously read concerning men generally recommends accentuating the wider shoulders and de-emphasising the hips, exaggerating the visual mass of the upper body. That could be a large part of why men have become associated with trousers, as well as the typical designs of men's trousers, as having less fabric around the legs de-emphasises the lower body.

A skirt in comparison draws a lot of attention downwards, and within this model would look more feminine, which may read as 'odd'.

I don't know to what extent that preference towards exaggerating the shoulders is a culturally trained thing, vs innate in human perception. Also it isn't that hard to find examples of men wearing skirts that do look visually balanced, which tend to align with the pattern I outlined in the first post.

Also thanks everyone else for the thoughts.

[robehickman]

On general follow up to these thoughts, it seems to me that generally what is done in fashion styling is to exaggerate 'expected' body features. As noted above female fashioning has often been based on emphasising the width of the hips, as this is a natural feature of most women's bodies, and something people tend to find attractive, weather due to innate human perception, cultural training, or probably both.

Skirts on women's bodies also tend to inherently create appealing visual lines because of the smooth body curves around the waist and hip area, which a skirt will naturally extrapolate from.

Men typically don't have that much in the way of waist to hip difference, and wide hips isn't generally a feature people are looking out for in men, and this I expect is why attempting to directly copy feminine styling can look really odd. In a sense male bodies lacking so many features leaves 'less to work with' regarding body exaggerations from skirts that will work visually on male body types.

In addition to the 'mirror the torso around the waist' profile that we already know works, I think based on this analysis:

• a very sheer skirt could work because it would add some visual flare to the lower body without adding so much visual weight or drawing so much attention to itself due to being transparent.
• asymmetrical / jagged hems, a short skirt with 'points' extending a long way down from it (such as an exaggerated hanky hem), also seems to work visually.
• pleats seem to fit visually with male body features tending to be more 'angular'.

[FLbreezy]

This is an interesting thread, it made me think a bit about why I think knee-length-ish skirts look the best on men and I got out the measuring tape. Waist-to-knee and waist-to-shoulder is about 22 inches for me. So a knee-length A-line/flared skirt will echo the width of the shoulders at about the same distance from the and have a balanced appearance.

[rivegauche]

We are all different shapes. I have been told I look better in women's clothes (meaning dresses or tops and skirts with added bosom) than in men's. I have had a professional style consultation and I am an inverted triangle, which they said was a shape that looked good in dresses - and many female models are inverted triangles. They recommended either of two lengths: short at around 21" which is slightly above my knee, or 35-36" which is long midi. The shorter length should be straight but the longer length can be any shape. Medical websites say that a healthy male waist/hip ratio should be no more than 0.9. Mine is 0.92, yet I have a very obvious waist.

I find that I can get away with skirts in the 21-30" range as long as they are straight. A flared or A-line shape in this length just looks awkward on me. I always try on clothes because you really can't tell on the hanger how it will look in wear. One look I have recently been experimenting is a sleeveless dress with an open shirt dress over this in a slightly longer length - the colours have to work together obviously.

It cost me a lot of money to get this experience so I hope it can be of some use to others.

[robehickman]

This is an interesting thread, it made me think a bit about why I think knee-length-ish skirts look the best on men and I got out the measuring tape. Waist-to-knee and waist-to-shoulder is about 22 inches for me. So a knee-length A-line/flared skirt will echo the width of the shoulders at about the same distance from the and have a balanced appearance.

Hi FLbreezy, I also think that knee length skirts look best, and for me:

• My shoulders to my natural waist is about 20 inches, which would give a skirt length a few inches above the knee.
• 22 inches is about shoulder to 'trouser waist', which gives a skirt in line with the top of my knee.
• My dance skirt is about 25 inches long from the top of the waistband, and worn at the natural waist (as I typically do) is below the knee length, and measuring the same distance up from the top of the waistband is roughly in line with the top of my head. The skirt looks *slightly* too long in my opinion.
• It does seem to work to have a knee length skirt that is slightly longer than the measurement from top of head to waist.

A knee length skirt roughly splits the body into 3 equal sections. The other thing which generally looks reasonable is a slightly flared ankle-length skirt, similar in silhouette to the Japanese hakama (although technically most hakama are 'secret pants', not a true skirt).

Chinese male 'hanfu' skirts either have a similar slightly flared A-line shiluette like the hakama, or are more 'bell' shaped, flaring wider at the bottom, which would align with my prior thought about why boots work well visually.

An ankle length skirt splits the body visually such that two thirds are the skirt, and one third is the torso and head, which aligns with the 'rule of thirds'. It looks fine to me as long as the flare of the skirt is visually balanced.

Skirt flare angle and also length makes a lot of difference, where even pretty small changes can make the difference between a skirt looking natural, vs weird. I find it worthwhile playing 'paper dolls' with a human anatomy image in a drawing software.

[robehickman]

There are some points raised in this video concerning using human perception and optical illusions to change how garments make someone look. Targeting women, thus not all applicable.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzDKlTpjiGs

[Grok]

I think this thread can be helpful in labeling skirt lengths.

[robehickman]

I think this thread can be helpful in labeling skirt lengths.

Link is a 404 page.

[Grok]

I noticed. The thread had the title "Common Terminology," in the kilt and skirts section, 5. A list of lengths, from shortest to longest:

1. Micro

2. Mini

3. Above knee

4. Knee length

5. Below knee

6. Midi

7. Ballerina

8. Maxi

9. Floor