Where Do we Draw the Line ?

General discussion of skirt and kilt-based fashion for men, and stuff that goes with skirts and kilts.
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oldsalt1
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Re: Where Do we Draw the Line ?

Post by oldsalt1 »

How does this affect the way we think about clothing? For most, who still cling to the old views, it likely never gets thought of, and when it does it tends to draw derision for the simple matter that it's "different". Face it, you're not going to see Rambo in a skirt because his brain isn't capable of making the jump; however, you will see artists and the bright ones be able to make that jump -- especially artists. Occasionally children can make that jump without much difficulty, which is very nice indeed; however, children still need to deal with their parents who may still be using "old thinking".

How about Vin Deisel he may not be Rambo but he is close. as far as only seeing "artists" I am not an artist. of course I am not Rambo either. But I am a veteran with combat experience., Macho man not really but I did make the jump
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Re: Where Do we Draw the Line ?

Post by Kilty »

oldsalt1 wrote:Society expects skirt wearers of either gender to dress well if at all, so accessories are inevitable. We are still guys, even if the wardrobe choice differs from the norm. Some may not like this but it comes with the territory of the type of garment :roll:


Before you wore skirts you wore pants. sometimes you dressed up with a nice pair of slacks loafers etc. and sometimes you dressed down with jeans and sneakers. The same is true with skirts .

some skirts require shaved legs nylons and matching pumps. But some skirts its ok to dress down even to the point of men's socks shirts and sneakers.


I am not a fashion plate but you can't tell me that this outfit is not acceptable
Looks fine to me! I only have a couple of denims now (one long, one knee length) but on some nights out I've just worn a skirt straight from work, and swapped heels for sneakers... most girls do it as pumps can ache after a whole day :roll: plain colours like black or navy with pop sox if in summer and my legs are fine has drawn compliments too :oops: most times I may go freshen up and change my tights, I always keep a spare pair in my bag in case of ladders etc :wink:

It's a different style to regular mens clothes but I've even worn sneakers with a kilt :mrgreen:
skirtingtheissue
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Re: Where Do we Draw the Line ?

Post by skirtingtheissue »

Daryl wrote:SO, I think those things that we perceive as "feminine" probably have some connection with our biological evolution. My theory is that our sense of what is "pretty" is part of the evolved attributes that females use to attract males....
...and yet in the animal kingdom it's usually the opposite... the males are doing the attracting and are the pretty ones (or at least fancy, colorful, patterned, ornate). Particularly among birds from the peacock on down.
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Re: Where Do we Draw the Line ?

Post by weeladdie18 »

I tend to make my skirt outfits a creative style of a mix of my collection of clothes in my wardrobe...This is a fairly well thought out
Rig, different for each day....I am trying to cull my excessive collection by noting the garments I never actually wear out on the street.

My favourite clothes are the ones which I fairly regularly wear.....Today I wore an 8 yard Kilt and Argyle Jacket when I went out for
Breakfast at my favourite watering hole

I went out to watch the sunset this evening and wore a 1983 style sarong with a knee length cardigan over a thick old government issue
sweater.... My theme is to try to avoid feminine colours and patterns and shoes which have a definately feminine look.

This is just a style which I wish to present and I am confident in wearing.......yesterday I wore a full pale yellow and black dress.
I disguised the dress by wearing a black zip up cardigan under my favourite long cardigan.
I do try to co ordinate my outfits but no one really cares what I wear
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Re: Where Do we Draw the Line ?

Post by weeladdie18 »

I find that many patterns on summer skirts are too feminine for me .....My preference is for Oriental ,Indian ,Southern European patterns.
Some of these garments are over thirty years old........The bold vertical or horizontal stripes are out.
Stripes will change the outlook of a figure and make the wearer look fatter or thinner....big check patterns , like a chess board are out....

There are problems with badly fitting garments which are designed for the wineglass female form.
I feel that I try and avoid skirt outfits which make me stand out in a crowd .....

When I went into my Kilt Maker up in Scotland ,two or three years ago, I spent an hour looking at the Locharron Weavers book of
Clan Tartans...I chose a simple pattern with black, Dark green and dark blue......
Some tartans are very bold......yellow ,black and red........or blue ,red and yellow.

Traditionaly the Highlander would wear a muted Hunting Tartan Kilt out on the Moors as a form of camouflage .
For evening wear a Dress Tartan would be worn with a Dinner Jacket.

Colour Co-ordination ,Style and Fit are the finer points of drawing the line....................weeladdie
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Daryl
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Re: Where Do we Draw the Line ?

Post by Daryl »

skirtingtheissue wrote:
Daryl wrote:SO, I think those things that we perceive as "feminine" probably have some connection with our biological evolution. My theory is that our sense of what is "pretty" is part of the evolved attributes that females use to attract males....
...and yet in the animal kingdom it's usually the opposite... the males are doing the attracting and are the pretty ones (or at least fancy, colorful, patterned, ornate). Particularly among birds from the peacock on down.
Interesting that you chose a bird example. From Wikipedia:
"The XY system contrasts in several ways with the ZW sex-determination system found in birds, some insects, many reptiles, and various other animals, in which the heterogametic sex is female."

Are male peacocks actually doing the attracting or are their displays meant to encourage acceptance? Human males are also quite showy in some ways but usually also select which females to spend the time and energy on. I think pretty and showy are not exactly the same thing, and mate-selection is a two-way street with different tools on the different sides of the street. One side is the no-parking between 7am and 6pm and the other has all the hydrants...or sumpin like that. So pretty may be more the domain of the female where rugged may be more the domain of the male, on average, without those being absolutes. (I've heard that in France people park in front of the hydrants all the time.)
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Re: Where Do we Draw the Line ?

Post by Daryl »

crfriend wrote:
moonshadow wrote:Is society broken? Or are we? <--- I think that is the question we're all really trying to untangle.
Something that is largely forgotten when discussing matters like this is that we've moved, societally and developmentally, beyond basic evolution and "survival of the fittest". We may not like that, but it's true nonetheless, and even in an environment where brawn counts for a whole lot, brains and the ability to reason though things very frequently prevails.

If it was still down to "Only the strong survive." we'd not have come anywhere near as far as we have as a species, because it's always the smart ones who come up with new and novel ways of doing things that make life easier and thereby confer advantages to survival that brawn alone cannot provide.
"Survival of the fittest" was never the best way to describe evolution anyway (though Darwin himself endorsed it as a quick encapsulation for natural selection). The Wikipedia article on Evolvability is revealing in this regard. Species have characteristics that aren't merely maximisation of the immediate reproductive ability of individuals within them. That is huge news though we rarely hear about it.

I have already reproduced so whatever it is that makes me dress different is out there in the wild now, affecting our species. :D
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Re: Where Do we Draw the Line ?

Post by crfriend »

Daryl wrote:"Survival of the fittest" was never the best way to describe evolution anyway (though Darwin himself endorsed it as a quick encapsulation for natural selection).
"Fittest" in this context does not mean the most "physically fit" but rather the most capable of adapting to their surroundings, so we need to be certain of the context we're using.

Above and beyond all else, it is the modern human brain which has allowed us to successfully colonise parts of the globe, and indeed a small part of Low Earth Orbit, which sets us remarkably apart from all other creatures. In any given local environment, it's entirely probable that there are species resident there that are better adapted to said local environment -- and thus would "tend to do better" than humans. It's adaptability through thought and design that sets humans apart: we don't adapt to the local environment, we adapt it for our needs, whether those needs be warmer clothing in colder environments, advanced shelter, cooling in hotter environments, and so on up to the extremely hostile environments where our gadgets even allow us to breathe. As creatures, we are "generalists" -- decent at a lot of things, but truly superior in few.

The above having been said, I suspect that Homo Sapiens are now post-evolutionary. Our physical forms are pretty much where they have to be; unfortunately, this strongly implies that we're more reliant on out technology than ever, and fewer and fewer of us understand that technology and can fix it when it breaks.

As far as reproduction goes, I'm fine with the fact happy I never did.
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Re: Where Do we Draw the Line ?

Post by weeladdie18 »

Does the survival of the fittest explain why certain ethnic minority races migrate and settle in the four corners of the world ?

Some ethnic minorities settle in the U.K. and live a family live style which is not normally chosen by Traditional U.K. Residents.
Does the Life Style explain the survival of these ethnic minorities ?

Many of these groups came to the U.K. after WW11 to replace the losses of British Labour as casualties of the war.
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Re: Where Do we Draw the Line ?

Post by Daryl »

crfriend wrote:
Daryl wrote:"Survival of the fittest" was never the best way to describe evolution anyway (though Darwin himself endorsed it as a quick encapsulation for natural selection).
"Fittest" in this context does not mean the most "physically fit" but rather the most capable of adapting to their surroundings, so we need to be certain of the context we're using.

Above and beyond all else, it is the modern human brain which has allowed us to successfully colonise parts of the globe, and indeed a small part of Low Earth Orbit, which sets us remarkably apart from all other creatures. In any given local environment, it's entirely probable that there are species resident there that are better adapted to said local environment -- and thus would "tend to do better" than humans. It's adaptability through thought and design that sets humans apart: we don't adapt to the local environment, we adapt it for our needs, whether those needs be warmer clothing in colder environments, advanced shelter, cooling in hotter environments, and so on up to the extremely hostile environments where our gadgets even allow us to breathe. As creatures, we are "generalists" -- decent at a lot of things, but truly superior in few.

The above having been said, I suspect that Homo Sapiens are now post-evolutionary. Our physical forms are pretty much where they have to be; unfortunately, this strongly implies that we're more reliant on out technology than ever, and fewer and fewer of us understand that technology and can fix it when it breaks.

As far as reproduction goes, I'm fine with the fact happy I never did.
Heh, I've thought that we may be post-evolutionary too, but I don't believe it. We are certainly players in our own evolution though, for better or worse. I expect our eyes to get worse over the millenia whilst our minds may not evolve at all.

My main problems with the idea of "fitness" are that it tends to focus on individuals within the species not on species themselves as individuals within the realm of living things, and that it tends towards promoting a teleological view rather than the truer (IMO) view that evolution is not what will happen but only what has happened -- the survival of the survivors rather than the survival of the fittest. Fitness is after the fact of survival, not the cause of it, which is why things like evolvability are species traits not individual traits.
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Re: Where Do we Draw the Line ?

Post by Daryl »

moonshadow wrote:Is society broken? Or are we? <--- I think that is the question we're all really trying to untangle.
My opinion is neither. Brokeness is something we see. Things are just what they are, with no original design to refer to in order to say what they are broken relative to. This doesn't mean we can't make things better or worse, just that we have no absolute fixed reference from which to proceed.

On the topic of worldliness vs. godliness, or "samsara vs. nirvana" in my case, I eventually found that I had to explore why I even found that distinction meaningful, and that led me down a rabbit hole, the end of which was neither samsara nor nirvana but compassion. Compassion includes yourself.

As for traits that are deeply embedded, they can be very ancient and have no apparent practical use in recent evolutionary history. Our ability to discern prettiness and to value it could go to way before primates even existed, for all we know. Check out what Jordan Peterson says about standing up straight with shoulders back. It makes us feel better not just appear more imposing to those who see us. Apparently the gene that causes that effect hails all the way back to an ancestor we have in common with the lobster. (So at least remember to not slouch when eating lobster.)
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Re: Where Do we Draw the Line ?

Post by Daryl »

weeladdie18 wrote:Does the survival of the fittest explain why certain ethnic minority races migrate and settle in the four corners of the world ?

Some ethnic minorities settle in the U.K. and live a family live style which is not normally chosen by Traditional U.K. Residents.
Does the Life Style explain the survival of these ethnic minorities ?

Many of these groups came to the U.K. after WW11 to replace the losses of British Labour as casualties of the war.
That's an odd digression.

In a way evolution explains everything, even strange French automobiles. We have evolved to be quite an adaptable and mobile species, so the ability to migrate to where the grass is greener is obviously part of our evolution.
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Re: Where Do we Draw the Line ?

Post by Daryl »

weeladdie18 wrote:I tend to make my skirt outfits a creative style of a mix of my collection of clothes in my wardrobe...This is a fairly well thought out
Rig, different for each day....I am trying to cull my excessive collection by noting the garments I never actually wear out on the street.

My favourite clothes are the ones which I fairly regularly wear.....Today I wore an 8 yard Kilt and Argyle Jacket when I went out for
Breakfast at my favourite watering hole

I went out to watch the sunset this evening and wore a 1983 style sarong with a knee length cardigan over a thick old government issue
sweater.... My theme is to try to avoid feminine colours and patterns and shoes which have a definately feminine look.

This is just a style which I wish to present and I am confident in wearing.......yesterday I wore a full pale yellow and black dress.
I disguised the dress by wearing a black zip up cardigan under my favourite long cardigan.
I do try to co ordinate my outfits but no one really cares what I wear
Except that I've long since abandoned kilts, we share a lot. I am deliberately testing the masculine/feminine boundaries but in general I have to be in the right mood before I bother. Generally I lean masculine and just find it the easiest and most relaxed way to dress. I am discovering that I am going to be getting into trouble in the footwear department though. Even without little sparkly bits and bows and such, things with heels are perceived as feminine, yet I find myself drawn to them. Breaking the gendered norms is certainly an amusing hobby...never a dull moment. :lol:
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Re: Where Do we Draw the Line ?

Post by crfriend »

I'm on the road at the moment at a computer conference in the Denver area which concluded just yesterday, so I'm well off my own home turf -- and I have received nothing but praise and positive comments on my attire, and some of the looks I've been sporting have been pretty well over into the "femme" side.

For instance, this morning as I was heading down to get breakfast I picked up a comment of, "Don't you look lovely today! I love the bright colours. It's nice to see." from a woman who got into the elevator with me. I offered up a humble, "Thank you very much!"

Yesterday evening, I had a wonderful chat with another conference-goer, a chap who had come all the way from New Zealand, who decided to stray from computers for a bit and we chatted about my attire which he thought "different" but "interesting" and "attractive" and was curious about my drivers on the matter.

More will eventually follow, likely in "Personal Stories" regarding the conference, but I've been surrounded by extremely bright folks for the past few days as a bit of an "outsider" and I was warmly welcomed, reaffirmed old contacts and friendships, and likely made some new ones as well.
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Re: Where Do we Draw the Line ?

Post by Daryl »

crfriend wrote:Yesterday evening, I had a wonderful chat with another conference-goer, a chap who had come all the way from New Zealand, who decided to stray from computers for a bit and we chatted about my attire which he thought "different" but "interesting" and "attractive" and was curious about my drivers on the matter.
Possibly he was hitting on you but your replies didn't lead to openings for less subtle inquiries. Maybe not. I've always been terrible at picking up clues of that nature, though I'm pretty good at most other kinds of subtle exchanges.
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