Eliminating the waistline: avoiding an unflattering optical illusion in male skirts

[robehickman]

MIS isn't going to become normalised while many of outfits people are putting together (and thus the general public are being exposed to) simply look weird, or disharmonious with the person wearing them. This is not that difficult to avoid.

[Grok]

A few members have a special eye for fashion, and can somehow assemble surprising rigs that look good.

Other members, I believe, can at least tell if a rig looks weird. I have assumed that members will try on new purchases, and stand before a mirror. They can certainly look at the images that they post. By trial and error they can figure out what works, and what doesn't.

[robehickman]

A few members have a special eye for fashion, and can somehow assemble surprising rigs that look good.

Other members, I believe, can at least tell if a rig looks weird. I have assumed that members will try on new purchases, and stand before a mirror. They can certainly look at the images that they post. By trial and error they can figure out what works, and what doesn't.

I believe that those are skills that can be learned. Analysing and paying attention to outfits one sees on another person, that instil a 'that works' / 'that looks great' reaction' is a way of being able to predict what does / does not work for a person with a given body type.

I believe that before 'men in skirts' can gain any mainstream traction, people (in general, not the members of this forum) need to start being far more discerning about the outfits they are putting together. I think that a great deal of the cultural pushback against men wearing skirts is just because most of the outfits that get assembled, do objectively look dissonant with the person wearing it.

Men are not women. This is not about being constrained by traditional 'boring' cultural norms around menswear, but to work out what kinds of skirts and skirted garments are actually harmonious with a variety of male body forms.

Actually, I think that the established garment design ideologies of mainstream menswear are preventing people from exploring male skirted outfits that work well, particularly the fixation on having the waistline in the same place. For a skirt to look harmonious with a person proportionality is everything, the length of top garments has to change depending on the length of the skirt.

Humans copy things they think look cool. If men start wearing skirted outfits that look cool instead of comical, it will gain traction.

[Grok]

I believe that before 'men in skirts' can gain any mainstream traction, people (in general, not the members of this forum) need to start being far more discerning about the outfits they are putting together. I think that a great deal of the cultural pushback against men wearing skirts is just because most of the outfits that get assembled, do objectively look dissonant with the person wearing it.

I have to wonder how often this dissonance is due to men borrowing garments from the other side of aisle. Wearing garments designed for women.

(I acknowledge that a few freestylers can make such borrowing look good).

[robehickman]

I believe that before 'men in skirts' can gain any mainstream traction, people (in general, not the members of this forum) need to start being far more discerning about the outfits they are putting together. I think that a great deal of the cultural pushback against men wearing skirts is just because most of the outfits that get assembled, do objectively look dissonant with the person wearing it.

I have to wonder how often this dissonance is due to men borrowing garments from the other side of aisle. Wearing garments designed for women.

(I acknowledge that a few freestylers can make such borrowing look good).

Personally, I think that is most of the problem. Depending on how a garment is cut, it creates a silhouette with a certain visual line. Women's skirts are designed to create a visual line that extrapolates from the body curves between the narrow waist and wide hips. They also frequently are designed to bulk up the apparent size of the hips.

Those things do not and can not work harmoniously with the shape of the vast majority of male bodies - the visual focus of most man is the shoulders, not the hips. The curved visual lines also conflict because they attempt to extrapolate from curves the wearer does not have.

On a surface level one could assume that a skirt is a tube and thus inherently unisex, but this is *NOT* the case. I have researched how men's kilts are tailored, and there are aspects of their design that optimise it for the male form. The pleats are not uniformly tapered, rather the lower part of the sewn 'fell' is tapered and the upper part of it is parallel.

Men's and women's kilts actually differ substantially in how they are made. There is a series on youtube by ex-army kilt-maker Robert MacDonnald, where he takes a male tailored kilt, completely disassembles it, and remakes it to fit a woman. During this process, he goes into considerable detail about how making kilts for men vs women requires a very different approach.

Traditionally made men's kilts cut out two of the three layers of the top of the pleats for no reason than to not artificially bulk up the hips. This aspect of the design adds much complexity to the construction, because re-enforcement stitching must be added to strengthen were the fabric was removed.

Women can also experience this same dissonance between the visual lines of a garment and their own body shape. There was a woman at an open mic I was at last week who was wearing a very voluminous petticoat, and the line of the silhouette did not look great with the shape of her torso.

I also have a theory that the reason that brightly coloured and printed skirts worn by men generally look weird, is because the garment draws too much attention downwards, away from the visual focus of the shoulders. This issue is most apparent to me when a bright skirt is paired with a plain top --- it would probably look much more balanced if the entire outfit was brightly coloured and printed (this idea aligns with what I've seen in historic record).

Women are culturally taught how to put together sane outfits, men typically are not. Women also have FAR more range of garments available, designed to fit an average female body, from which they can choose to assemble outfits.

I've been watching a youtube channel called 'beepworld' which is a woman teaching women how to assemble outfits, to gain perspective into how women approach this.. It is interesting in that she very frequently runs into 'this looks weird' situations, in the same ilk of male skirted outfits often looking weird, then she makes changes to fix it.

[Grok]

Personally, I think that is most of the problem. Depending on how a garment is cut, it creates a silhouette with a certain visual line. Women's skirts are designed to create a visual line that extrapolates from the body curves between the narrow waist and wide hips. They also frequently are designed to bulk up the apparent size of the hips.

Those things do not and can not work harmoniously with the shape of the vast majority of male bodies - the visual focus of most man is the shoulders, not the hips. The curved visual lines also conflict because they attempt to extrapolate from curves the wearer does not have.

I also have a theory that the reason that brightly coloured and printed skirts worn by men generally look weird, is because the garment draws too much attention downwards, away from the visual focus of the shoulders. This issue is most apparent to me when a bright skirt is paired with a plain top --- it would probably look much more balanced if the entire outfit was brightly coloured and printed (this idea aligns with what I've seen in historic record)

Yes. I have looked at a number of skirt designs for women, where curves are built into the skirt. I find it hard to imagine these garments looking good on men, but easy to imagine them looking weird.

I recall linking to a web site where masculine skirts were described as angular, featuring straight lines. Tending to be longer skirts, though occasionally short.

Regarding colors and prints, I have to point out that mens traditional trousers suits tend to be monochromatic, except for neck wear and the chest area. And with such suits the jewelry tends to cluster in the neck area, except for watches, rings, and cuff links.

[Hayseed]

I have my own issues when it comes to clothing, both trousers and skirts. You see, I had a colostomy a few years back and the stoma protrudes quite a bit, much more so than usual for such operations. Were I to wear a suit and tie, it would look like I was packing heat, so loose upper body clothing is practically demanded.

Interestingly, if I wear a skirt sized as to length and waist so that it fastens, not around the waist itself, but higher up, above the stoma, then we have the "perfect" solution for the skirt, fastened above the stoma, hangs down over this protrusion. No bulge. I do wear a sweater or vest to cover the false waist.

Another option is to wear a poncho with the outfit. This might seem to work for many folks out there is skirtland.

[Grok]

I also have a theory that the reason that brightly coloured and printed skirts worn by men generally look weird, is because the garment draws too much attention downwards, away from the visual focus of the shoulders. This issue is most apparent to me when a bright skirt is paired with a plain top --- it would probably look much more balanced if the entire outfit was brightly coloured and printed (this idea aligns with what I've seen in historic record).

I think a brightly colored skirt could work ok, if worn with a shirt that is brightly colored, with some sort of pattern (stripes? plaid?). That is, if the skirt is a solid color, and the shirt has the pattern. A pattern in bright colors should tend to draw the eye upward. While combining a solid colored garment with a patterned garment tend to work well.

[Mouse]

I also have a theory that the reason that brightly coloured and printed skirts worn by men generally look weird, is because the garment draws too much attention downwards, away from the visual focus of the shoulders. This issue is most apparent to me when a bright skirt is paired with a plain top --- it would probably look much more balanced if the entire outfit was brightly coloured and printed (this idea aligns with what I've seen in historic record).

I think a brightly colored skirt could work ok, if worn with a shirt that is brightly colored, with some sort of pattern (stripes? plaid?). That is, if the skirt is a solid color, and the shirt has the pattern. A pattern in bright colors should tend to draw the eye upward. While combining a solid colored garment with a patterned garment tend to work well.

So I was wondering if a hat makes any difference to this drawing the eye upwards, since I appear to wear bright skirts with plain tops all the time. On the other hand I freely admit that I am weird, so maybe my look just matches.

[Grok]

Actually, Mouse, your hat looks so distinctive that it does draw the eye.