C’mon Guys, Work That Skirt!
What if every male person who wants to wear a skirt to work, just does it one day?
Carlyn Beccia got me thinking about this again today with her article, 7 Reasons Why More Men Should Wear Skirts. I‘ve written about this before too and yes, I am rather gender-bent but it is great to have a woman’s honest perspective on this topic.
She points out in # 6, that “Androgyny is hot AF.”
Think about the first time you wore a “feminine” colored shirt or playful tie. I bet all the ladies showered you with compliments. There’s a reason for that.
Johnny Depp, Gerard Butler, and my history crush (don’t judge) Rasputin have nailed this seduction trick. (And it’s not that they all have worn skirts.) These men concoct a heady brew of fearless manliness and feminine mystique. It’s why long-haired vampires make women swoon — androgyny is alluring. Men who play with gender-bending norms rattle our brains. He is the unsolvable riddle.
My liberty print shirts get me so many compliments from women, nothing suggestive, just ‘your shirts are so cool!’ My wife picks a lot of them out for me although I’ve worn paisly and floral prints since I was a teen. Conversely those shirts make some men quite uncomfortable — oh and my pink shirts too. Often, they try to transmit that discomfort to me: I’ve received so many snide comments from men involving some lame ‘gay’ reference, the affected lisp, a flamboyant sing-song voice that goes up a register, the ubiquitous limp wrist — yes, in the workplace. Or, I am accused of raiding my wife’s closet. I have a great 1970s snap-front western shirt that I snapped up quick when I found it hanging in a thrift shop. One man at work went through the effort to pull me aside and ask,
“So, is that a gay cowboy shirt?”
Yes! Like Tito Guizar!
It says far more about them than it does me. It’s asinine and frankly, most of the nicest, coolest men I know are gay. So, I always smile and say, ‘Oh, thank you for the compliment!’
And yeah, like Keith Richards did, I do raid my love’s wardrobe. When you say you wear your wife’s clothes to a man who’s just made fun of your floral shirt, and do it without blinking an eye, it’s entertaining to see him trip over himself trying to find a witty comeback. But alas for me, my sweetie is an 8 and I’m a 16 and that limits me to some of her scarfs and maybe a wrap or over-sized T — but she digs it. On our first date, I arrived with orange nails and her only question was “would you wear eyeliner for me?” She purred like a cat as she asked it.
By the way, I am amazed by how many women sincerely compliment my nail colors. Maybe Johnny Depp’s been cancelled but the man has style. I started wearing my polish in public after I saw the mixed barrage of befuddlement and praise after he showed up at an event with his in denim blue.
So here I am, drinking my morning coffee in a comfy, black, A-line skirt made of soft jersey that I got from Marcella NYC and it is the most comfortable thing I’ve ever worn. I’m going to have to take it off in a little bit and put on my trousers for work…stupid cultural constructs that I’m buying into (said in a Homer Simpson voice)!
What if every male person who wants to wear a skirt to work, just does it one day? I reckon there are more than a few hundred thousand of us, if not a couple mill. C’mon, let’s organize a week where we just do it en masse. Why do only badass rockstars and artists get to ‘get away’ with it?
That’s the problem, it’s that idea of ‘getting away with something.’ Like they’ve committed a crime. I dunno, David Bowie struck me as a man who was exceeding comfortable in his own skin — and a skirt.
Yes, I know he’s wearing pants in the center photo but they are stylish, comfy-looking, skirty pants.
