What’s wrong with men wearing skirts?

THERE’S nothing more comfortable in hot weather than a skirt. These guys are wearing them and they’re loving it.

Does this look like a man who would wear a skirt? Why not?

ALL this hot weather. It’s the perfect weather for a nice, cool skirt. But not if you’re a bloke, obviously. Men don’t wear skirts.

Actually, think again. Recently my mate Bryan confessed he was bored with the conservative dress code for blokes.

“If only we could wear skirts to work,” he laughed, “it’s too hot for pants and skirts world be perfect if they were more gender neutral.”

And as it turns out, he’s not alone. Plenty of Australian men are wearing skirts.

A few days after speaking with Bryan I stumbled upon Michael Aichholzer, 56, at a festival. He was wearing a garment called a “utility kilt” — a hard-wearing men’s skirt.

“This one’s made out of a heavy cotton but I have a more robust one that’s called a ‘Workman’ that is actually made for tradies, so it’s got a belt for tools integrated into the kilt itself. It’s got a ton of pockets for keeping [your] wallet, phone, change, keys,” he told me.

Michael wearing his ‘Workman’ man skirt. Picture: Ginger Gorman

Michael’s utility skirt is practical and comfortable.

In the 1990s, Michael lived in Hawaii where the island men wore wraparounds. With much joy, he followed their lead. Then a decade later Michael discovered the utility kilt and never looked back.

“I have no Scottish heritage but I’ve always wanted the freedom and the choice of being able to wear a kilt or a wraparound type of clothing,” Michael says, “there’s nothing feminine about it at all. I think it’s quite manly.”

As Michael suggests, many of us are aware that Scottish men have worn kilts since at least the 1600s. (For a laugh, watch this BBC Scotland video right until the end.)

But it’s not just the Scots who are partial to a man-skirt. In ancient Greece and Rome, men commonly wore tunics. Likewise, Egyptian Pharaohs also wore wraparound skirts.

Today men still commonly wear sarong-like garments in countries such as Fiji, Tonga and India. In fact, the Fijian police have an especially striking uniform.

All in all, you’ve got to conclude the man-skirt has a long and noble tradition.

Jim, 29, hails from Sydney and is an avid wearer of the man-skirt, though he prefers the terms ‘unipants’ and ‘crotch curtains’ because they are less gender specific.

This then begs the question: why are we so hung up about men wearing skirts in Australia?

“Australia inherited an Anglocentric clothing system and despite the waves of transcultural migration, [the] dominant modes of appearing and being for men have not changed much,” Dr Peter McNeil, a Professor of Design History at UTS explains.

“If anything the hipster thing made men more normative.”

Dr McNeil notes that in the 1980s numerous public figures — like the designer Gaultier and musicians Boy George and Marilyn Manson — were playing with notions of gender.

However he says men who actually wore the “beautiful and sexy and nice to wear” skirts that some Sydney designers were making at that time still “risked a good beating.”

“I think that’s why men are still so scared of skirts — it’s a social phobia. The trouser is so ingrained in the western mentality but of course it’s got very little to do with masculinity,” Dr McNeil explains.

Reflecting back to his teenage year, Dr McNeil says: “When was 18, I bought a copy of The Face [magazine] and on the cover was a sexy guy wearing a skirt. The headline promised the clothing revolution was coming. It never arrived of course.”

Despite this, some blokes are prepared to break the rules. One of them is Sam Fisher, head designer at the Melbourne-based clothing label tanner+teague.

Sam began wearing “straight and blunt cut” skirts in about 2003 and has designed a number of man-skirts himself.

“The silhouette was very straight and then crumpled between the legs. I used to wear that all the time actually,” he says.

Clothing designer Sam Fisher designed this canvass man-skirt, which he used to wear all the time.

Right now tanner+teague doesn’t have a man-skirt in production. However without giving too much away, Sam says: “I am working on a few ideas at the moment.”

Another frequent man-skirt wearer is my former boss at ABC Canberra, Jordie Kilby. More than a decade age, he took to wearing a Fijian sulu — a traditional type of skirt — to work and caused quite a stir.

“My wife brought me my first sulu following a trip she made to Fiji in 2002. It was summer and I quickly found that it was really comfortable to wear.

“I guess I’m attracted to things that are a different to the norm and so between the comfort factor and the alternative nature of wearing it out, my Sulu became an active part of my wardrobe,” he says.

Jordie in Fiji, where he regularly wears a Sulu.

Reflecting on the way others viewed his wardrobe choices back then, Jordie describes his Sulu as “a talking point for sure, but never an issue.”

For professional reasons, 41-year-old Jordie and his family eventually moved from Australia to Fiji. He wears a sulu to work every day.

“I have a range from navy blue to grey and a couple of tartan ones. Some are tailored and some are bought off the rack … I generally wear my sulu with a collared shirt. If it’s an important occasion then I’ll add the waistcoat,” he says.

From Jordie’s perspective, he’d like to see “the conservative nature of the male dress code … shaken up.”

“I’m actually surprised there hasn’t yet been a push from the fashion industry for this. Opening up more options for men would surely be good for business,” he says.

Meanwhile Michael — who works at a non-profit that supports young men — urges blokes “not worry so much about what others think” and give skirt-wearing a crack.

“Once you’ve actually jumped into it, you’ll never go back,” he says.

For inspiration, check out this Pinterest board of amazing man skirts.

Follow Ginger on Twitter @GingerGorman