The most logical modern day garment for a man

[moonshadow]

A thought occurred to me as I put my work pants on this morning, and fastened the belt... Why do we need a belt anyway? Many men I know use a belt for a practical reason, it keeps things from falling down. I would say before the invention of elastic, a belt, cord, suspender, or some type of item was needed to keep many-a-mans pants from falling to the ankles. Women may also wear belts too, but for them, its more a matter of style. Why? I suppose the answer is that most men have narrow hips and most women are known for wider hips, thus there is something there to "hold things up" when you are a female.

Myself included, even involving skirts. This is why a size 10 skirt will with perfectly as long as it has an elastic waist. If it's not elastic, I must go to a size 12, and it MUST have belt loops otherwise it will probably try to fall down at some point in the day. I took actual measurements of my hips, waist, and bust area, and they all were actually within 1/2" of each other. At this point (due to my somewhat larger gut) my waist is just a tad bit larger than my hip. Which makes skirt buying somewhat complicated. Fortunately, after years of strapping a pants belt tight at my high hip area I have a well defined "valley" that holds skirts just as securely as a pair of jogging pants or pajama pants.

Anyway, all of that aside. It got me to thinking about the perfect and most logical male garment. And I am of the current opinion that the modern day "dress" is actually more fitting simply from a logical and practical standpoint over pants and even skirts. The dress provides the comfort of a skirt from the waist down, however your upper torso and shoulders will hold the whole thing in place. As we look back into history, we see that men wore "dress" like garments all the time. Going back into biblical time, many wore tunics and robes, which are similar to dresses.

I will continue the opinion and go on to say that I love wearing skirts. And I certainly think there is a place for them in the male and female wardrobe alike, however I just think that dresses make more practical sense. Now I'm not talking about dresses like what you see on a Disney movie. More like the kind of dresses that Jack was always photographed in. A dress DOES NOT have to be feminine! I think that skirts are more popular because it's somewhat easier for a man to be accepted in a skirt over a dress thanks to the kilt. And that's good in it's own way. For those who push the envelope further and add some skirts to their kilted wardrobe, they may find that they may also enjoy a simple dress once in a while.

As for me, I'm going to put my money where my mouth is. Last night I put on my woman within jumper dress with a black t-shirt underneath. I thought I looked nice in it. I decided that this week was the week. I'm going to wear it later this week when I do my grocery shopping, and I may also wear it this weekend when we go out and about.

Thoughts?

[Big and Bashful]

I agree totally, a dress designed for a man to wear would be a great thing to wear and be worth buying, unfortunately if you are my shape you certainly can't just go out and buy an off the peg dress as I am built rather larger and heavier than women tend to be. Leaving aside the "assets" that female tailoring caters for.
I like the idea of the tunic or even robes, not too far different from a shirt and a long skirt. I always fancied the idea of the old Gandalf type mode of dress, not easy to find though!

[partlyscot]

I took actual measurements of my hips, waist, and bust area, and they all were actually within 1/2" of each other. At this point (due to my somewhat larger gut) my waist is just a tad bit larger than my hip.

<Blink>I have the same problem with the gut, in as far as it's a little bigger than I like (working on it) but it's been more than a few years where my 3 main measurements matched that closely.

I agree with most of what you say, skirts work well for me, dresses should work slightly better from a technical standpoint. Style and looks though, much trickier to find stuff that fits and looks good. I have a shirt dress I am halfway thru modifying, must get to finishing that tomorrow, and I have a store credit waiting for me to use at eShakti. (custom dresses etc)

This experimentation is becoming an awful lot of fun!

[moonshadow]

Reaper man is photographed on this board wearing some dresses that I think look cool on a man. Im on my phone now so its difficult for me to cut amd paste a link but some of them are in my thread "a dress happened". I'd like to know where he picked up the steam punk dress.

[partlyscot]

Reaper man is photographed on this board wearing some dresses that I think look cool on a man. Im on my phone now so its difficult for me to cut amd paste a link but some of them are in my thread "a dress happened". I'd like to know where he picked up the steam punk dress.

Most of them don't work with my self image, the steam punk one could make the basis for a suitable design, but I think I see myself going in a different direction.

[Judah14]

If you want a masculine-looking modern day dress, why not try these?

[moonshadow]

If you want a masculine-looking modern day dress, why not try these?

Interesting... and this ties into my comment about what people have worn throughout the ages. How men in many cultures still wear "dress like" garments.

I would be open to wearing one, although it would take some gall in these parts. The only thing that surpasses homophobia around here is anything from the Arab world. I dare say in some more rural parts of this area it might actually be a bit dangerous.

[Judah14]

Well at least if you wear the dress by itself, then it would be more like a Biblical character costume than part of Arab traditional dress (though they are practically interchangabe as I have seen artwork of Biblical characters in what is essentialy Arab dress), right?

[moonshadow]

Well at least if you wear the dress by itself, then it would be more like a Biblical character costume than part of Arab traditional dress (though they are practically interchangabe as I have seen artwork of Biblical characters in what is essentialy Arab dress), right?

In my opinion, you are correct. However as is evident elsewhere in this forum, it's clear that I don't stay "in the closet" for long on anything. Basically once I find out something fits right, I head out the door and find a downtown to walk in. It's just who I am. I value my freedom, and I challenge all of these "patriots" in this area to put their money where their mouth is and leave me alone to enjoy my freedom as I choose.

I will give it some consideration. All freedom aside, I'm kicking around if the Arab robe is my style. In fact, just today I have been debating on actually wearing my Wiccan robe more often in public.... just because... It's different. I've seen NOBODY, not men or women wear one of these things (the Wiccan robe) casually. To tell you the truth, I've wanted to do it for years, ever since I bought the thing. Just never had the guts. Thanks to the skirts, and the confidence that have given me, I think I may just give it a go.

Will it look silly? Probably to most, but I maintain it is a very elegant garment.

Harry Potter fans, eat your heart out!

Here is the full ensemble:
I don't know the exact date this was taken, the original 1.3 mb file says it was created in September of 2012.

smallms2.jpg

I'll leave the hood down while in public. I'm wearing a enclosed green robe under, with a cord tied around the waist.

Why do I want to wear this?

Because nobody else does!

I've worn this twice in public, both on Halloweens. One Halloween I took it into the grocery store.... even on Halloween I took in quite a few stares!

I think it's time to put some more miles on this old garment. The fact that it's already paid for and sitting in my closet as I write this also helps.

[Judah14]

Yes I know it is a matter of preference for each of us, but what I am pointing out is the "hate" for anything Arab or Muslim, including their attire, especially by closed-minded conservative Christians, considering that most of the characters in the Bible wore similar garments.
Anyways, your Wiccan attire looks great!

[moonshadow]

Yes I know it is a matter of preference for each of us, but what I am pointing out is the "hate" for anything Arab or Muslim, including their attire, especially by closed-minded conservative Christians, considering that most of the characters in the Bible wore similar garments.
Anyways, your Wiccan attire looks great!

I tend to agree. And just so you know, I think a lot of people elsewhere in the world look at the U.S. as a bunch of redneck loud mouths. And while that is what dominates our air waves and satellite signals, I think the reality is most people are at least somewhat tolerant. They may not be "your buddy" but will leave people they don't like alone for the most part. The reality is, we are mostly a bunch of armchair warriors.

[Reaper_Man]

I'd like to know where he picked up the steam punk dress.

sorry for the delay in replying i have been away to Whitby Goth Weekend ( a Goth music festival in England) where plenty of dresses were worn by myself and some of the other male attendees and visitors to the town of Whitby over the weekend (it gets vey busy on the saturday with many thousand of people turning up) sadly the steampunk dress didn't get worn on this occassion as i did take a lot of dresses with me and i was lacking some of the accessories that i would have like to have worn with the steampiunk dress (was hoping to get some in Whitby but couldn't find what i was really looking for).

anyway to answer your question, i bought the dress at a local alternative clothing shop (Soho Leeds) however it is made by a company named Banned Cloithing and they supply wholesale to shops all over the world (they even have a supply warehouse in the US) a quick google search for banned steampunk dress should show many results and they can be purchased on Amazon uk so it's possible that the US version of Amazon will also have them.

For those that haven't seen moonshadows post ' a dress happened' here is the picture and dress he is refering to

[Jim]

Another option from a dress that helps with the waist-hip size dilemma would be suspenders. Maybe Amish looking suspenders, with an Amish looking hat?

And, of course, that continues below as a skirt, not trousers.

[moonshadow]

Another option from a dress that helps with the waist-hip size dilemma would be suspenders. Maybe Amish looking suspenders, with an Amish looking hat?

And, of course, that continues below as a skirt, not trousers.

Hum.... interesting idea. Definitely "free style", and something different. I like the concept. Only issue I can see is with no inseam, and the overall "looseness" of skirt design, suspenders may actually "walk the skirt up" over the course of the day. But I wouldn't object to at least applying the scientific method to this idea.

2013-updated_scientific-method-steps_v6_noheader.png

[Caultron]

Another option from a dress that helps with the waist-hip size dilemma would be suspenders...

Since a dress already hangs from the shoulders, what good would suspenders do?